sity  of  California 
them  Regional 
)rary  Facility 


.   • 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

MRS.  MACKINLEY  HELM 


MUSIC  AND 
MORALS 


BY 


THE   REV.  H.  R.  HAWEIS,  M.A. 


PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 

THEODORE  PRESSER  CO. 

1712  CHESTNUT  ST. 


CONTENTS. 


first  Book. 

PHILOSOPHICAL. 

MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

ftp 

1 .  The  Fount  of  Color 15 

2.  The  Fount  of  Sound 16 

3.  Nature  and  Art 16 

4.  Music  and  other  Arts 19 

5.  Emotions  and  Objects 21 

6.  Abstract  Emotion 24 

7.  Analysis  of  Emotion 28 

8.  Connection  between  Music  and  Emotion 31 

9.  Dull  Music 33 

10.  Objections 34 

11.  Connection  between  Music  and  Words 35 

12.  Sound-Art  and  Color-Art 38 

1 3.  Music  and  the  Age 41 

14.  Attend  Morok^. 44 

15.  Morality  defined 45 

16.  Morality  applied 48 

17.  Music  and  Morality 50 

18.  Emotion  and  Morals 53 

19.  The  Composer 54 

20.  Rise  of  Music   55 

21.  Realism  and  Sentimentalism 56 

22.  German,  Italian,  and  French  Schools 58 

23.  The  Executive  Musician 61 

24.  Soloists 65 

25.  Orchestral  Players 71 

26.  Culture 77 

27.  Morality 79 

28.  Longevity 87 

29.  The  Listener 87 

30.  Planes  of  Emotion 90 

31.  Shakspeare  and  Raphael 92 

32.  Italian  and  German  Sentiment 94 

33.  patriotic  Songs 95 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


34.  Musical  Perturbations 97 

35.  Memory 99 

36.  Musical  Quotation 101 

37.  Women  and  Music 102 

38.  Dream-life i 103 

39.  Sacred  Music. — The  Oratorio 104 

40.  Congregational  Singing 106 

41.  Slow  Church 107 

42.  Choir  Reformation 108 

43.  Use  of  Anthems  and  Voluntaries 109 

44.  Need  of  Artistic  Unity 110 


gteccnb  jBook. 

BIOGRAPHICAL. 
FROM  AMBROSE  TO  HANDEL. 

45.  First  and  Second  Periods 115 

46.  Third  Period 118 

47.  Carissimi.— Italy 120 

48.  John  Dunstable.— England 121 

49.  Lulli.— France 122 

50.  Purcell... 123 

61.  Han3eD=-Gennany 124 

HANDEL. 

52.  His  Portraits 125 

53.  Childhood 127 

54.  Early  Manhood 1 29 

55.  Italy 131 

56.  England 135 

57.  Second  Visit  to  England 136 

58.  Handel  and  his  Friends 138 

59.  Operas 144 

60.  Reverses 1 45 

6 1 .  More  Trials 147 

62.  Contemporary  Composers 151 

63.  Music  in  England 1 55 

64.  Oratorios 158 

65.  Cabals 160 

66.  Handel  at  Oxford 162 

67.  More  Operas  and  Cabals 162 

68.  A  Funeral  Anthem 165 

69.  Failure  and  Success 166 

70.  Saul  and  Israel  in  Egypt 168 


CONTENTS.  vii 

PHP 

71.  Handel  in  Ireland 172 

72.  The  Messiah 173 

73.  Samson  and  the  occasional  Oratorio 181 

74.  Judas  Maccabseus 183 

75.  Joshua,  Solomon,  Susannah,  Theodora ]  84 

76.  Handel  at  Peace 186 

77.  A  Visit  to  Master  Hardcastle 188 

78.  The  last  Act 191 

GLUCK. 

79.  Portrait  of  Gluck 194 

80.  Pdse  of  Gluck,  and  State  of  Music  in  1714 195 

81.  Gluck  and  Haydn 197 

82.  Gluck's  Style 198 

83.  The  Opera  a  defective  Form  of  Art 199 

84.  Rise  of  the  German  Opera 201 

85.  Gluck  in  Paris 202 

86.  Gluckists  and  Piccinists 204 

87.  Old  Age  and  Death 206 

88.  Estimate  of  his  Character 207 

HAYDN. 

89.  Likeness  and  Difference 209 

90.  Early  Days 211 

91.  Metastasio  and  Porpora 213 

92.  Quartets 214 

93.  Tempests 215 

94.  Symphonies 216 

95.  Prince  Esterhazy 217 

96.  Work  and  Wife 217 

97.  Mozart 219 

98.  Haydn  in  England 220 

99.  The  Creation  and  the  Seasons 223 

100.  Characteristics 225 

SCHUBERT. 

101.  Schubert  and  Chopin 227 

102.  Precocious  Talent 228 

103.  Early  Compositions 230 

104.  His  Friends 232 

105.  His  Appearance 234 

1 06.  Work  and  Romance 235 

107.  Beethoven 289 

108.  Last  Days 241 

109.  His  Compositions 241 


viu 


CONTENTS. 


CHOPIN.  ftgt 

110.  Romantic  and  Classical  School 249 

111.  First  Years 251 

112.  His  Manners 252 

1 13.  His  Style. 253 

114.  Paris 253 

1 15.  His  Friends 254 

116.  Chopin  and  Madame  Sand 257 

117.  England 259 

1 18.  Death 260 

119.  His  Compositions 261 

THE  LETTERS  OF  MOZART. 

120.  Omissions  explained 263 

121.  Vivid  Letters 264 

122.  Paris,  Vienna,  and  Love 266 

123.  Haydn 267 

124.  Activity  and  Death 268 

THE  LETTERS  OF  BEETHOVEN. 

125.  Appearance 272 

126.  Childhood  and  only  Loves 273 

1 27.  Deafness 275 

1 28.  Carl,  the  Young  Rascal 276 

129.  His  Generosity  and  Poverty 278 

130.  His  Religion  and  his  Art 279 

131.  Death 280 

MENDELSSOHN. 

132.  Books  about  Mendelssohn 283 

133.  Characteristics 284 

134.  Temperament 286 

135.  Wife,  Children,  Death 287 

136.  Elijah. — Introduction 289 

137.  Entrance  of  the  Prophet  Elijah 289 

138.  Famine  and  Dearth 290 

139.  The  Desert. 292 

140.  The  Sacrifice  on  Mount  Carmel 293 

141.  The  Storm  on  Mount  Carmel— "  Thanks  be  to  God" 295 

142.  The  Elijah  and  the  Messiah 296 

143.  Exultation,  and  "  Be  not  Afraid" 297 

144.  Jezebel 299 

145.  Elijah  forsaken  and  comforted 300 

146.  Earthquake  on  Mount  Horeb 303 

147.  Elijah  is  taken  up  into  Heaven 305 

148.  A  Perfect  Close ...  307 


CONTENTS.  IX 

®f)irb  Sook. 

INSTRUMENTAL. 

VIOLINS.  P^, 

149.  Introduction 313 

150.  Origin  of  the  Violin 314 

151 .  Gasparo  di  Salo,  Magini,  and  the  Amatis 320 

152.  Stradiuarius 323 

153.  Violin-making 329 

154.  Conclusion 335 

PlANO-FOBTES. 

155.  Origin  of  the  Piano-forte 337 

156.  The  Virginal 339 

1 57.  The  Spinet 342 

158.  The  Piano-forte 342 

159.  Sebastien  Bach 343 

160.  Mozart  and  dementi 344 

161.  Erard,  Broadwood,  Collard,  Pleyel 346 

BELLS. 

1 62.  Towers  and  Belfries 348 

163.  Bell-hunting 354 

164.  Antiquity  of  Bells 355 

1  G.->.  Use  of  Bells 357 

166.  Bell-founding  in  Belgium 359 

167.  Belgium  Bell-founders 364 

1 68.  Inscriptions 367 

169.  St.  Paul's  and  Westminster  Abbey 370 

170.  Big  Ben 372 

171.  Bells  and  Carillons . .  .378 


first  Book. 
PHILOSOPHICAL. 

MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORAL& 


.first  Book. 


MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 


i. 

THK  sun  smiting  through  crystal  drops  shakes  its  white 

i.        light  into  blue,  and  red,  and  yellow  fire ;  and,  as 
The  Fount  .      * 

of  Color,     the  beads  of  fresh-fallen  rain  tremble  in  the  wind, 

we  may  watch  the  primary  colors  of  the  rainbow,  com- 
bined and  recombined  with  wondrous  alchemy  into  more 
subtle  flame  of  emerald,  purple,  and  orange.  A  cloud  pass- 
es over  the  sky,  and  in  a  moment  every  tiny  globe  hangs 
before  us,  scintillant  still,  but  pale  and  colorless,  with  its 
one  quivering  speck  of  crystalline  light.  Then  we  can  see 
with  quiet  eyes  the  metallic  lustre  upon  the  wide  blue 
wings  of  the  Brazilian  butterfly — the  green  dissolving  into 
glitter  of  rubies  upon  the  breast  of  the  humming-bird — 
the  long  reaches  of  golden  kingcups  in  June  meadows,  or 
opal  tints  upon  wet  shells  and  blown  foam.  Have  we  not 
looked  into  the  great  laboratories  of  light  itself?  Have 
we  not  seen  the  essential  colors  in  the  very  moment  of 
their  evolution  falling  like  shattered  flame-flakes  from  the 
sun?  It  is  so  strange  to  find  them  mingled  bountifully 
with  all  created  things,  and  made  fast  in  every  conceiva- 
ble tint  upon  plume  of  bird  and  petal  of  flower? 


IQ  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

The  painter  goes  forth  each  day  into  a  new  Eden,  and 
finds  his  palette  already  laid  for  him.  He  can  not  choose 
but  take  the  materials  and  follow  the  suggestions  which 
Nature  so  freely  gives  him.  He,  too,  can  combine  and  re- 
combine  ;  can  distribute  his  hues  in  concord  and  discord 
of  color;  can  associate  them  with  definite  images,  or,  mak- 
ing them  the  vehicles  of  poetic  emotion,  paint  "  the  sun- 
shine of  sunshine,  and  the  gloom  of  gloom." 

The  wailing  of  the  wind  at  night,  the  hum  of  insect  life, 

2.  the  nightingale's  note,  the  scream  of  the  eagle,  the 

The  Fount 

of  Sound,  cries  of  animals,  and,  above  all,  the  natural  inflec- 
tions of  the  human  voice — such  are  the  rough  elements  of 
music,  multitudinous,  incoherent,  and  formless.  Earth,  and 
sea,  and  air  are  full  of  these  inarticulate  voices;  sound 
floats  upward  from  populous  cities  to  the  Cloudland,  and 
thunder  rolls  down  its  monotonous  reply.  Alone  by  the 
sea  we  may  listen  and  hear  a  distinct  and  different  tone 
each  time  the  swelling  wavelet  breaks  crisply  at  our  feet ; 
and  when  the  wind  with  fitful  and  angry  howl  drives  in- 
land the  foam  of  the  breakers,  the  shriek  of  the  retiring 
surge  upon  the  shingles  will  often  run  through  several  de- 
scending semitones. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  we  have  only  to  take  the  Col- 

3.  or  and  the  Sound  provided  for  us  by  Nature,  and 

Nature  and 

Art.  transform  them  at  once  through  the  arts  of  Faint- 

ing and  Music  into  the  interpreters  of  human  thought  and 
emotion.  But,  in  reality,  between  music  and  painting 
there  is  fixed  a  great  gulf  of  difference.  Nature  gives  man 
the  art  of  Painting,  as  it  were,  ready  made.  For  him  the 
sun  sets  and  rises,  and  the  summer  glows,  and  the  woods 
change  so  softly  and  slowly  beneath  his  gaze,  that  he  has 
time  to  chronicle  every  tint  before  it  has  passed  away. 


NATURE  AXI)  ART.  17 

All  forms  of  beauty,  from  the  supreme  outline  of  the  hu- 
man body  to  the  filmy  speck  of  the  minutest  insect,  are 
constantly  limning  themselves  upon  the  retina  of  his  eye 
until  his  sensitive  brain  is  supplied  with  objects  of  en- 
chanting loveliness,  which  he  is  at  liberty  to  reproduce  and 
recombine  at  will.  Nature  not  only  provides  the  painter 
with  fair  forms  and  rich  colors,  but  she  also  teaches  him 
the  magical  art  of  selection  and  arrangement.  But  what 
has  she  done  for  the  musician  ?  She  has  given  him  sound, 
not  music.  Nowhere  does  there  fall  upon  his  ear,  as  he 
walks  through  the  wide  world,  such  an  arrangement  of 
consecutive  sounds  as  can  be  called  a  musical  subject,  or 
theme,  or  melody.  Far  less  does  he  find  any  thing  which 
can  be  described  as  musical  harmony.  The  thunder  is  not 
affecting  because  it  is  melodic,  but  because  it  is  loud  and 
elemental.  The  much-extolled  note  of  the  lark  is  only 
pleasant  because  associated  with  the  little  warbler,  the 
"  sightless  song"  in  the  depth  of  the  blue  sky ;  for  when 
the  lark's  trill  is  so  exactly  imitated  (as  it  can  be  with  a 
whistle  in  a  tumbler  full  of  water)  that  it  deceives  the 
very  birds  themselves,  it  ceases  to  be  in  the  least  agreea- 
ble, just  as  the  sound  of  the  wind,  which  can  also  be  well 
imitated  by  any  one  compressing  his  lips  and  moaning, 
ceases  under  such  circumstances  to  be  in  the  least  roman- 
tic. The  nightingale's  song,  when  at  its  best,  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  being  a  single  and  not  unpleasantly  loud  whis- 
tle. That,  too,  can  be  imitated  so  as  to  defy  detection. 
But  once  let  the  veil  of  night  be  withdrawn,  and  the  hu- 
man nightingale  disclosed,  and  we  shall  probably  all  ad- 
mit that  his  performance  is  dull,  monotonous,  and  unmean- 
ing. The  cuckoo,  who  often  sings  a  true  third,  and  some- 
times a  sharp  third  or  even  a  fourth,  is  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  music  in  Nature ;  but  this  tuneful  fowl  gets  less 
credit  for  his  vocal  powers  than  almost  any  other ;  and 
2 


18  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

while  he  is  screamed  at  and  hunted  from  hedge  to  hedge 
by  his  own  species  as  a  very  outlaw  among  birds,  he  it 
voted  but  a  coarse  and  vulgar  songster  by  man.  At  any 
rate,  though  some  may  admire  his  call  as  the  herald  note 
of  spring,  yet  when  "  cuckoo  cuckoo"  is  blown,  as  boys 
know  how  to  blow,  upon  the  hollow  fists,  no  one  except 
the  cuckoo  cares  to  listen  to  the  strain  for  its  own  sweet 
sake.  The  cries  of  most  large  birds,  such  as  the  ostrich 
and  peacock,  are  intolerably  disagreeable.  Nor  are  the 
voices  of  the  animals,  from  the  pig,  the  cat,  and  the  don- 
key downward,  any  better.  We  need  not  go  so  far  as  Mr. 
Darwin's  Gibbon  monkey  to  find  an  animal  that  sings  sev- 
eral notes  and  occasionally  hits  an  octave,  for  the  same  can 
be  said  of  the  domestic  cat ;  but  in  neither  case  is  there 
such  an  arrangement  of  notes  as  can  be  called  Melody,  or 
such  a  combination  of  notes  as  can  be  called  Harmony. 
Poets  from  time  immemorial  have  tried  to  throw  dust  in 
the  eyes  of  mankind  whenever  they  have  touched  upon 
this  subject,  but  it  is  high  time  the  truth  should  be  told. 
The  Harmonies  of  Nature  are  purely  metaphorical.  There 
is  no  music  in  Nature,  neither  melody  nor  harmony.  Mu- 
sic is  the  creation  of  man.  He  does  not  reproduce  in  mu- 
sic any  combination  of  sounds  he  has  ever  heard  or  could 
possibly  hear  in  the  natural  world,  as  the  painter  transfers 
to  his  canvas  the  forms  and  tints  he  sees  around  him. 
No ;  the  musician  seizes  the  rough  element  of  sound  and 
compels  it  to  work  his  will,  and  having  with  infinite  pains 
subjugated  and  tamed  it,  he  is  rewarded  by  discovering 
in  it  the  most  direct  and  perfect  medium  in  all  Nature  for 
the  expression  of  his  emotions. 

The  Painter's  art  lies  upon  the  surface  of  the  world ;  its 
secrets  are  whispered  by  the  yellow  cornfields  spotted 
with  crimson  fire,  and  the  dappled  purple  of  heather  upon 
the  hills ;  but  the  Musician's  art  lies  beneath  the  surface. 


MUSIC  AND  OTHER  ARTS.  19 

His  rough  material  of  Sound  is  like  the  dull  diamond, 
earth-incrusted  and  buried  in  deep  mines;  it  simply  does 
not  exist  as  a  brilliant  and  a  thing  of  priceless  beauty  un- 
til it  has  been  refined  and  made  luminous  by  deliberate 
arrangement  of  glittering  facets,  set  in  splendor  of  chaste 
gold. 

And  then — what  then  ?  it  will  be  asked ;  what  does  all 
4.  this  manipulation  of  sound  end  in  ?  what  is  the 
other  Arts,  value  or  dignity  of  this  art  of  Music  ?  We  easily 
recognize  the  foundation  of  other  arts.  The  art  of  Sculp- 
ture rests  upon  the  fact  that  when  man  awakens  to  a  sense 
of  the  beauty,  power,  or  even  grotesqueness  of  form,  he  is 
impelled  by  a  creative  instinct  to  reproduce,  select,  and 
combine  its  various  qualities — firstly,  that  he  may  perpet- 
uate the  forms  of  fleeting  beauty  that  he  sees  around  him ; 
and  secondly,  that  he  may  impart  to  the  ideal  conceptions 
of  his  imagination  an  outward  and  concrete  existence.  We 
are  not  ashamed  to  derive  the  keenest  satisfaction  from 
the  Niobe  or  the  Antinous,  for  we  see  in  these  a  perennial 
and  dignified  expression  of  human  grace  and  pathos.  And 
even  when  we  turn  to  such  painful  and  distorted  figures  as 
the  Laocoon,  although  we  may  call  them  "debased  art" 
according  to  our  canons  of  taste,  yet  neither  these  nor  any 
other  specimens,  however  corrupt  or  weak,  can  effect  the 
real  dignity  of  sculpture  itself.  Similarly,  the  art  of  Paint- 
ing rests  upon  a  rational  impulse  to  select  and  combine 
colors  chiefly  in  connection  with  intelligible  forms  and 
subjects  of  definite  interest;  and  although  painting  is  less 
definite  in  some  respects,  and  less  complete  in  others,  than 
sculpture,  yet  its  range  is  wider,  its  material  infinitely 
more  ductile,  while  its  command  of  emotion  through  the 
vehicle  of  color,  and  of  ideas  through  variety  of  outline, 
gives  it  an  importance  and  dignity  which  it  would  be  dif- 


20  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

ficult  to  overestimate.  Even  such  an  art  as  Legerdemain 
is  capable  of  a  satisfactory  explanation ;  for  it  is  the  out- 
ward realization  in  one  department,  however  narrow,  of 
certain  excellent  qualities  of  the  eye  and  hand.  A  Phidian 
sculpture,  a  picture  by  Titian,  even  a  conjuring  trick  by 
Professor  Frikell,  can  be  accounted  for  and  justified  in  a 
few  words ;  but  when  we  come  to  a  Symphony  by  Beetho- 
ven, philosophy  is  dumb,  or  rides  off  upon  a  quibble  about 
the  scientific  structure  of  music  or  its  technical  qualities, 
all  true  and  interesting,  no  doubt,  but  still  leaving  un- 
touched the  great  Art-problem  of  music — What  is  the  ra- 
tionale of  its  existence,  and  what  the  secret  of  its  power 
over  the  soul  ? 

Music,  as  distinguished  from  the  various  rude  attempts 
of  the  past,  is  only  about  four  hundred  years  old.  Modern 
music,  which  is  alone  worthy  of  the  name,  is,  in  fact,  the 
youngest  of  the  arts,  and  stands  at  present  in  a  correspond- 
ingly unfavorable  position ;  for  while  it  has  been  brought 
to  the  highest  perfection,  the  secret  of  its  power  is  almost 
wholly  unexplored ;  and  as  long  as  this  is  the  case,  music 
must  continue  to  be  ranked  last  among  the  fine  arts.  But 
the  day  is  at  hand  when  the  veil  of  the  prophetess  will  be 
lifted.  Already  in  Germany,  the  land  of  thought,  music 
has  been  adopted  as  the  national  art — as  painting  was 
once  in  Italy,  and  sculpture  in  Greece.  Already  the  names 
of  Beethoven  and  Mozart  are  whispered  through  the  civil- 
ized world  in  the  same  breath  with  those  of  Phidias  and 
Michael  Angelo;  and  the  time  is  probably  not  far  distant 
when  music  will  stand  revealed  perchance  as  the  mightiest 
of  the  arts,  and  certainly  as  the  one  art  peculiarly  repre- 
sentative of  our  modern  world,  with  its  intense  life,  com- 
plex civilization,  and  feverish  self-consciousness. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  music  is  the  language  of  the 
emotions ;  but  what  there  is  in  music  to  act  upon  emotion, 


EMOTIONS  AND  OBJECTS.  21 

or  how  it  both  expresses  and  excites  it,  sometimes  com- 
pelling the  mind  to  clothe  the  awakened  emotion  with  defi- 
nite ideas — at  others,  dispensing  with  ideas  altogether — 
this  has  never  yet  been  explained.  With  the  cautiousness 
and  humility  of  one  who  feels  himself  upon  untrodden 
ground,  I  offer  the  following  reflections  as  a  contribution 
to  the  much-neglected  study  of  Musical  Psychology. 

n. 

WE  can  not  do  better  than  start  with  the  popular  asser- 
&         tion  that  music  is  the  language  of  the  emotions. 

Emotions  . 

and  objects.  But  before  we  attempt  to  show  the  points  of 
contact  between  emotion  and  its  art-medium,  and  before 
we  can  understand  how  it  is  that  music  finds  itself  on  the 
same  plane  of  action  with  the  emotion,  and  so  fitted  to  be- 
come at  one  time  their  minister  expressing  them,  at  an- 
other their  master  commanding  them,  it  will  be  necessary 
to  form  a  clear  and  almost  concrete  conception  of  the  emo- 
tions themselves.  Of  course  we  can  no  more  get  to  the 
root  of  that  aspect  of  life  exhibited  in  emotion  than  we 
can  get  to  the  root  of  life  itself  in  man,  or  beast,  or  vegeta- 
ble. Life  is  only  known  by  the  sensations  and  appearan- 
ces which  accompany  it — by  its  proximate,  and  not  its  ul- 
timate causes.  Speaking  physically,  then,  what  happens 
when  a  person  is  moved  or  excited  ?  A  certain  quicken- 
ing of  the  blood  as  it  rushes  through  the  heart,  or  what  we 
call  a  hurried  pulse,  and  a  corresponding  disarrangement 
of  molecules  in  the  brain.  If  it  were  not  for  these,  acting 
through  what  we  may  call  nerve-currents,  we  should  not 
be  capable,  constituted  as  we  are  at  present,  of  experien- 
cing any  emotion  at  all.  The  nature  of  our  emotions  may 
depend  either  upon  the  nature  of  external  objects  present- 
ed to  the  senses,  or  upon  internal  and  unexplained  process- 
es connected  with  what  we  call  our  thoughts.  Now  what 


22  MUSIC,  EMOTIOX,  AXD  MORALS. 

most  people  are  alive  to  is  the  existence  of  emotions  in 
their  more  intense  forms.  Once  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
or  two  or  three  times  during  the  month,  they  have  been 
greatly  moved  or  excited  pleasurably  or  otherwise.  But 
what  few  people  realize  is  that  emotion  is  actually  coex- 
tensive with  consciousness.  Physically  this  is  the  case, 
for  there  is  no  pause  in  the  incessant  disturbance  and  re- 
arrangement of  the  cerebral  molecules  which  are  insepara- 
bly connected  with  the  phenomena  of  human  conscious- 
ness, and  human  consciousness  itself  is  nothing  but  an  un- 
interrupted concatenation  of  emotions,  most  of  them  so 
unimportant,  so  involved,  and  succeeding  each  other  with 
such  intense  rapidity  that  we  take  no  note  of  them.  Like 
distant  lights  in  a  dark  night,  only  those  of  a  certain 
brightness  are  visible  to  the  naked  eye.  As  a  traveler  in 
a  railway  carriage  sees  the  objects  fly  by  him  with  a  ra- 
pidity which  lessens  the  impression  that  each  is  calculated 
to  make  by  itself,  but  takes  note  of  a  cathedral  or  a  regi- 
ment of  soldiers,  so  the  multitudinous  objects  and  events 
that  crowd  upon  us  during  the  most  uneventful  day  may 
indeed  affect  us  consciously,  and  produce  a  great  variety 
of  feelings  without  once  awakening  the  self-consciousness 
of  a  strong  emotion. 

It  may  be  a  relief  to  the  reader  if  we  ask  him  to  pause 
at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings,  and  analyze  very  roughly 
a  few  of  the  emotions  which  in  a  very  short  space  of  time 
he  is  in  the  habit  of  experiencing.  It  would  require  vol- 
umes to  analyze  properly  the  emotional  history  of  a  single 
hour,  but  the  reality  and  continuity  of  such  a  history  may 
be  briefly  indicated. 

On  first  awakening  we  may  all  have  experienced  at 
times  a  puzzled  kind  of  feeling.  This  is  produced  by  the 
conflict  between  the  conditions  of  the  waking  and  the 
sleeping  states.  A  feeling  of  doubt  as  to  whether  we  are 


EMOTIONS  AMI  OBJECTS.  23 

really  going  to  be  hanged,  as  we  just  now  dreamed,  is  suc- 
ceeded by  a  sense  of  relief,  passing  quickly  into  a  sense  of 
humor,  which  in  its  turn  is  arrested  by  a  sense  of  depres- 
sion caused  by  Lhe  eye  falling  on  a  letter  containing  bad 
news  received  on  the  previous  night.  Then  follows  a  train 
of  speculation,  resulting  in  an  infinite  series  of  little  ela- 
tions  and  depressions  as  we  take  a  hopeful  view  of  the 
concern  or  otherwise.  A  knock  at  the  door  brings  a  wel- 
come distraction,  and  we  leap  up  with  an  energy  which  is 
really  the  result  of  a  complex  state  of  feeling ;  that  is  to 
say,  emotion  of  relief  at  getting  rid  of  a  disagreeable  sub- 
ject ;  emotion  caused  by  a  resolution  to  get  dressed ;  emo- 
tion caused  by  anxiety  to  be  in  time  for  an  engagement ; 
emotion  caused  by  a  chilly  feeling,  which  reminds  us  of  a 
fire  down  stairs,  etc.,  etc.  Upon  opening  the  door  and 
seizing  the  hot- water  jug,  we  experience  a  sudden  depres- 
sion on  finding  the  water  barely  tepid ;  but  quick  as 
thought  the  elation  of  anger  succeeds  as  we  rush  to  the 
bell-rope,  which  comes  down  beneath  our  too  vigorous  ef- 
forts, and  again  supplies  us  with  a  complex  emotion  :  emo- 
tion of  resentment  against  the  servant,  the  cause  of  all  the 
mischief;  ditto  against  the  carpenter  who  put  up  the  bell- 
rope  the  day  before ;  ditto  against  ourselves  for  angry 
haste ;  reflex  feeling  of  resolve  to  be  more  careful  next 
time ;  prospective  feeling  of  annoyance  at  having  to  pay 
for  putting  up  the  rope  again.  It  is,  perhaps,  needless  to 
continue  the  analysis  of  that  internal  life  which  consists  of 
such  an  infinite  variety  of  important,  trivial,  and  complex 
feelings.  But  before  we  consider  how  music  deals  with 
emotion,  we  must  try  and  seize  the  fact  that  the  history 
of  each  hour  does  not  only  consist  of  outward  incidents, 
but  that  each  one  of  these  incidents  and  objects,  as  also 
every  thought  which  flits  through  the  mind,  has  its  own 
accompanying  emotion,  or  train  of  emotions,  and  that  the 


24  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

whole  of  human  life  forms  one  vast  emotional  fabric,  begun 
long  before  thought,  and  continued  down  to  the  feeblest 
pulse  of  second  childhood. 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  emotion  in  connection  with 
«.  definite  images  such  as  letters,  bell-ropes,  hot-water 
Emotion,  jugs ;  but  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  defi- 
nite images,  or  even  thoughts,  are  indispensable  to  the  ex- 
istence of  emotion.  We  may  be  tempted  to  think  that 
emotions  derive  all  their  importance  and  dignity  from  the 
thoughts  with  which  they  happen  to  be  associated.  The 
very  reverse  of  this,  however,  is  the  case.  Eniotion  is  oft- 
en weakened  by  association  with  thought,  whereas  thoughts 
are  always  strengthened  by  emotion.  Indeed,  emotion  is 
the  very  breath  and  life-blood  of  thought,  which  without 
it  would  remain  but  a  pale  and  powerless  shadow,  incapa- 
ble of  asserting  itself,  or  of  exercising  any  kind  of  influ- 
ence, good  or  bad.  As  the  sun  brings  light  and  warmth 
to  the  visible  world,  as  without  it  the  whole  realm  of 
physical  life  would  lie  forlorn  in  one  long  midnight  of  cold 
paralysis,  even  so  the  solar  orb  of  our  emotions  kindles 
each  thought  and  endows  each  conception  with  fertile  ac- 
tivity. What  power  can  any  thought  have  without  emo- 
tion ?  When  a  man  is  exhausted  with  hunger  and  fatigue, 
you  may  pass  through  his  mind  the  most  striking  thoughts 
of  Shakspeare,  or  the  most  thrilling  images  of  Byron,  but 
they  will  be  without  effect,  because  of  the  absence  of  emo- 
tional force  in  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the  commonest 
object  in  nature,  a  wayside  daisy, 

"The  meanest  flower  that  blows," 

seen  a  thousand  times  without  the  smallest  emotion,  may 
one  day  be  seen  with  the  poet's  eye,  and  will  suddenly  be 
found  to  contain  thoughts 

"  Too  deep  for  tears." 


ABSTRACT  EMOTION.  25 

Nc  doubt,  granting  a  certain  measure  of  sensibility,  out 
of  a  definite  thought  an  emotion  of  some  sort  will  arise ; 
it  is  equally  true  that  out  of  an  indefinite  emotion  corre- 
sponding thoughts  will  often  arise.  But  there  is  this  dif- 
ference between  Thought  and  Emotion — thought  is  dead 
without  emotion,  whereas  emotion  has  a  life  of  its  own  en- 
tirely independent  of  thoxight.  Thoughts  are  but  wander- 
ing spirits  that  depend  for  their  vitality  upon  the  magnetic 
currents  of  feeling. 

The  essential  power  of  emotions  over  thoughts  is  recog- 
nized in  the  most  popular  forms  of  language.  The  thought 
of  heaven  as  a  Place  is  sufficiently  powerless,  however  much 
we  may  deck  it  out  with  apocalyptical  splendors ;  but  we 
speak  of  the  State  of  the  Blessed  as  of  a  certain  emotional 
condition  of  joy,  and  are  perfectly  satisfied  to  rest  in  that 
definition  as  the  profoundest  of  all  realities,  although  we 
may  not  be  able  to  illustrate  it  by  one  definite  thought  or 
associate  it  with  any  one  distinct  image.  But  further,  when 
viewed  through  the  lenses  of  more  abstract  reflection,  all 
definite  thoughts  and  distinct  images  are  seen  more  clearly 
still  to  be  but  the  helps  and  crutches  to  something  beyond 
them — something  which  may  hereafter  become  in  its  turn 
definite  and  distinct,  leading  us  on  to  yet  another  dim- 
ness and  yet  another  Revelation.  Once  raise  a  thought  to 
its  highest  power,  and  it  not  only  is  accompanied  by  the 
strongest  emotion,  but,  strange  to  say,  actually  passes  out 
of  the  condition  of  a  thought  altogether  into  the  condition 
of  an  emotion,  just  as  hard  metal  raised  to  a  sufficient  pow- 
er of  heat  evaporates  into  the  most  subtle  and  attenuated 
gases.  The  pious  Roman  Catholic  kneeling  before  the  cru- 
cifix passes  through  successive  emotional  stages,  from  the 
gross  representation  of  a  tortured  human  body  to  the  ideal 
form  of  a  risen  and  glorified  Savior,  until  at  length  to  the 
devotee,  whose  adoring  eyes  are  still  fixed  upon  the  wood- 


26  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

en  crucifix,  nothing  remains  but  the  emotion  of  a  presence, 
felt  but  not  understood,  in  which  he  seems  to  live,  and 
move,  and  have  his  being.  That  is  the  moment,  he  will 
tell  you,  of  his  highest  life ;  the  seventh  heaven  has  been 
reached,  more  intensely  real  than  any  scene  of  earth  ;  but 
it  is  wholly  internal,  a  kingdom  within,  the  fullness  of  life, 
and  yet,  to  the  common  senses  impalpable,  without  form 
and  void.  The  same  phenomena  are  presented  to  us  by 
every  fine  actor ;  we  feel  that  his  art  culminates,  not  in 
the  rounded  period,  nor  even  in  the  loud  roar  and  violent 
gesticulation  of  excited  passion,  but  in  the  breathless  si- 
lence of  intense  feeling,  as  he  stands  apart  and  allows  the 
impotency  of  exhausted  symbols,  the  quivering  lip  and  the 
glazed  eye,  to  express  for  him  the  crisis  of  inarticulate 
emotion. 

But,  it  will  be  urged,  in  each  case  we  start  from  some- 
thing definite ;  in  the  latter  we  start  from  the  incidents  of 
the  play.  That  provides  us  with  a  key  to  the  emotion. 
Exactly  so.  But  what  I  am  maintaining  is,  not  that  emo- 
tion does  not  accompany  definite  thought,  but  simply  that 
thought,  in  proportion  to  its  intensity,  has  a  tendency  to 
pass  into  a  region  of  abstract  emotion  independent  and 
self-sufficing. 

In  the  same  way  Poetry,  which,  as  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  ob- 
serves, is  nothing  but  "  thought  colored  by  strong  emo- 
tion, expressed  in  metre,  and  overheard,"  is  constantly 
composed  of  words  which  will  hardly  bear  analysis,  as 
simple  vehicles  for  the  expression  of  definite  thoughts,  but 
which  may  be  justified  as  attempts  to  express  the  quicken- 
ing of  an  idea,  or  the  evaporation  of  thought  in  emotion. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  a  person  say,  "A 
truly  exquisite  poem ;  but  what  on  earth  does  it  mean  ?" 
A  search  for  definite  thoughts  may  very  likely  be  in  vain. 
What  the  poem  really  means  is  a  certain  succession  or  ar- 


ABSTRA  CT  EM<)  TIOX.  2  7 

rangoment  of  feelings,  in  which  emotion  is  every  thing, 
and  the  ideas  only  helps  and  crutches.  This  result  is  oft- 
en obtained  by  what  stupid  people  call  extravagance  of 
language  or  confusion  of  imagery,  and  by  what  Mr.  R.  H. 
Hutton  has  happily  termed  "  the  physical  atmosphere  of 
words."  J.  M.  W.  Turner's  vagueness  and  extravagance, 
so  much  complained  of  by  common  folk,  is  another  exam- 
ple of  the  transformation  of  thoughts  into  emotion.  Mr. 
Ruskin  has  observed  that  Turner  paints  the  souls  of  pict- 
ures. Even  Turner's  opponents  will  agree  that  in  many 
of  his  pictures  most  of  the  distinct  images  have  evapora- 
ted, while  others  perceive  that  these  have  only  vanished  to 
make  way  for  emotions  of  transcendent  force  arid  beauty. 

It  seems  to  us  evident,  then,  that  the  tendency  of  emo- 
tion in  all  its  higher  stages  is  to  get  rid  of  definite  thoughts 
and  images — is  it  equally  certain  that  it  occupies  an  inde- 
pendent region,  and  can  start  without  them  ?  A  very  lit- 
tle reflection  will  probably  convince  us  that  we  may  be  in 
a  state  of  emotional  depression,  or  otherwise — what  we 
call  in  good  spirits  or  in  bad  spirits — without  being  able 
to  assign  any  definite  reason,  or  to  trace  the  mood  in  any 
way  to  any  one  thought  or  combination  of  ideas.  A 
thought  may,  indeed,  flash  upon  the  depressed  spirit,  and 
dissipate  in  an  instant  our  depression — or  the  fit  of  depres- 
sion may  pass  away  of  itself  by  mere  force  of  reaction. 
Sensitive  temperaments  are  peculiarly  liable  to  such  "  ups 
and  downs ;"  but  we  shall  find,  if  we  examine  our  experi- 
ences, that  although  the  emotional  region  is  constantly 
traversed  by  thoughts  of  every  possible  description,  it  has 
a  life  of  its  own,  and  is  distinct  from  them  even  as  water 
is  distinct  from  the  various  reflections  that  float  across  its 
surface. 


28  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

So  far  we  have  merely  attempted  to  show  the  connec- 
7.         tion  which  exists  between  Thoughts  and  Emo- 

Analysis  of      .  »•»..»  i  m          j 

Emotion,  tions ;  and  during  the  pi'ocess  we  have  amrmea 
the  independent  existence  of  an  emotional  region,  in  which 
there  takes  place  a  never-ceasing  play  and  endless  succes- 
sion of  emotions,  simple  and  complex.  But,  in  order  to 
show  the  ground  of  contact  between  music  and  emotion,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  put  emotion  itself  into  the  crucible  of 
thought,  and  express  its  properties  by  symbols. 

We  shall  then  subject  Sound,  as  manipulated  by  the  art 
of  music,  to  the  same  kind  of  analysis  ;  and  if  we  find  that 
Sound  contains  exactly  the  same  properties  as  emotion,  we 
shall  not  only  have  established  points  of  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two,  but  we  shall  have  actually  reached  the 
common  ground,  or  kind  of  border-land,  upon  which  inter- 
nal emotion  becomes  wedded  to  external  sound,  and  real- 
izes for  itself  that  kind  of  concrete  existence  which  it  is 
the  proper  function  and  glory  of  art  to  bestow  upon  hu- 
man thought  and  feeling.  If  we  now  attempt  to  analyze 
a  simple  emotion,  we  shall  find  that  it  invariably  possesses 
one  or  more  of  the  following  properties ;  complex  emo- 
tions possess  them  all. 

I.  ELATION  AND  DEPRESSION. — When  a  man  is  suffering 
from  intense  thirst  in  a  sandy  desert,  the  emotional  fount 
within  him  is  at  a  low  ebb,  A  ;  but,  on  catching  sight  of  a 
pool  of  water  not  far  off,  he  instantly  becomes  highly  ela- 
ted, and,  forgetting  his  fatigue,  he  hastens  forward  upon  a 
new  platform  of  feeling,  B.     On  arriving  at  the  water  he 
finds  it  too  salt  to  drink,  and  his  emotion,  from  the  highest 
elation,  sinks  at  once  to  the  deepest  depression,  c. 

II.  VELOCITY. — At  this  crisis  our  traveler  sees  a  man 
with  a  water-skin  coming  toward  him,  and  his  hopes  in- 
stantly rise,  D  ;  and,  running  up  to  him,  he  relates  how  his 
hopes  have  been   suddenly  raised,  and  as  suddenly  cast 


ANALYSIS  OF  EMOTION. 


29 


EMOTIONAL  SYMBOLS. 


L  Elation  and  Depression. 


(Fig.  1.) 


II.  Velocity. 


(Fig.  2.) 

X 


III.  Intensity. 


(Tig.  3.) 


IV.  Variety. 


V.  Form  (see  Fig.  5). 


(Fig.  4.) 


EMOTIONAL  DIAGRAM  OF  THE  MAN  IN  THE  DESERT. 

(Fig.  r>.) 

Gratitude. 

Content. 

Sympathy. 


A.  Thirst. 

B.  Expectation. 

C.  Disappointment. 


r.  Mental  repetition  of  A,B,C. 

D.  Satisfaction. 

E.  Complex  feeling. 


30  MUSIC,  EMOTIOX,  AND  MOMALd. 

down,  at  B  and  c  respectively ;  but  long  before  his  words 
have  expressed,  or  even  begun  to  express  his  meaning,  he 
has,  in  a  moment  of  time,  ^ — x,  in  fact  spontaneously,  with 
the  utmost  mental  velocity,  repassed  through  the  emotions 
of  elation  and  depi'ession,  A,  B,  c,  which  may  at  first  have 
lasted  some  time,  biit  are  now  traversed  in  one  sudden 
flash  of  reflex  consciousness. 

III.  INTENSITY. — As  he  drinks  the  sparkling  water,  we 
may  safely  affirm  that  his  emotion  increases  in  intensity 
up  to  the  point  where  his  thirst  becomes  quenched,  and 
that  every  drop  that  he  takes  after  that  is  accompanied  by 
less  and  less  pungent  or  intense  feeling. 

IV.  VARIETY. — Up  to  this  time  his  emotion  has  been 
comparatively  simple  ;  but  a  suffering  companion  now  ar- 
rives, and  as  he  hands  to  him  the  grateful  cup,  his  emotion 
becomes  complex,  that  is  to  say,  he  experiences  a  variety 
of  emotions  simultaneously.    First,  the  emotion  of  content- 
ment at  having  quenched  his  own  thirst ;  second,  gratitude 
to  the  man  who  supplied  him  with  water — an  emotion 
probably  in  abeyance  until  he  had  quenched  his  thirst; 
third,  joy  at  seeing  his  friend  participating  in  his  own  re- 
lief. 

V.  FORM. — If  the  reader  will  now  glance  over  this  sim- 
ple narrative  once  more  by  the  aid  of  the  accompanying 
diagrams,  he  will  see  that  both  the  simple  and  the  com- 
plex emotions  above  described  have  what,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  we   may  call/brmy  i.  e.,  they  succeed  each 
other  in  one  order  rather  than  another,  and  are  at  length 
combined  with  a  definite  purpose  in  certain  fixed  propor- 
tions. 

Now  although  I  have,  in  order  to  lighten  the  burden  of 
metaphysics,  tacked  on  a  story  to  the  above  emotional  dia- 
gram, I  wish  to  remind  the  reader  that  it  needs  none,  and 
that  it  is  capable  of  indicating  the  progression  and  the 


MUSIC  AND  EMOTION.  31 

qualities  of  emotion  without  the  aid  of  a  single  definite 
idea.  It  must  also  be  observed  that,  although  I  have  ex- 
pressed by  symbols  the  properties  of  emotion,  simple  and 
complex,  no  art-medium  of  emotion  has  as  yet  been  arrived 
at;  nothing  but  barren  symbols  are  before  us,  incapable 
of  awakening  any  feeling  at  all,  however  well  they  may 
suffice  to  indicate  its  nature  and  properties.  We  have 
now  to  discover  some  set  of  symbols  capable  of  bringing 
these  emotional  properties  into  direct  communication  with 
sound,  and  Music  will  then  emerge,  like  a  new  Venus  from 
a  sea  of  confused  murmur,  and  announce  herself  as  the 
royal  Art-medium  of  Emotion. 

The  reader  will  perceive  in  a  moment  that  musical  nota- 
&  tion  is  the  symbolism  required,  for  it  is  capa- 

^eTMuScbe"  ble  not  only  of  indicating  all  the  properties  of 
and  Emotion.  emotion>  but  of  connecting  these  with  every 
variety  and  combination  of  sound.  That  every  musical 
note  corresponds  to  a  fixed  sound  may  be  called  a  self- 
evident  proposition.  I  hasten  further  to  point  out  that 
the  art  of  music  is  an  arrangement  or  manipulation  of 
sounds,  which  clearly  reveals  to  us  the  fact  that  sound 
possesses  all  the  properties  of  emotion,  and  is,  for  this  rea- 
son, admirably  calculated  to  provide  it  with  its  true  and 
universal  language. 

In  order  to  realize  this,  we  had  better  at  once  compare 
our  analysis  of  Emotion  with  the  following  brief  analysis  of 
Sound,  as  it  comes  before  us  in  the  art  of  musical  notation. 

I.  ELATION  AND  DEPRESSION. — The  modern  musical  scale 
consists  of  seven  notes,  or  an  octave  of  eight,  with  their 
accompanying  semi-tones.  The  human  voice,  or  a  violin, 
will,  in  addition,  express  every  gradation  of  sound  between 
each  note ;  thus  from  C  to  C,  ascending  or  descending,  we 
can  get  any  possible  degree  of  Elation  or  Depression. 


32  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

IL  VELOCITY. — This  property  is  expressed  by  the  em- 
ployment of  notes  indicating  the  durations  of  the  different 
sounds,  e.  g.,  minims,  quavers,  crotchets,  etc.  Also  by  terms 
such  as  adagio,  allegro,  etc.,  which  do  not  indicate  any 
change  in  the  relative  value  of  the  notes,  but  raise  or  low- 
er the  Velocity  of  the  whole  movement. 

TTT.  INTENSITY.  —  Between  ppp  and  fff  lie  the  various 
degrees  of  intensity  which  may  be  given  to  a  single  note. 
Intensity  can  also  be  produced  by  accumulating  a  multi- 
tude of  notes  simultaneously,  either  in  unisons,  octaves,  or 
concords,  while  the  words  crescendo  and  diminuendo,  or 
certain  marks,  denote  the  gradual  increase  or  decrease  of 
Intensity. 

IV.  VARIETY. — We  have  only  to  think  of  the  simplest 
duet  or  trio  to  realize  how  perfectly  music  possesses  this 
powerful  property  of  complex  emotion ;  and  we  have  only 
to  glance  at  a  score  of  Beethoven's  or  Spohr's  to  see  how 
almost  any  emotion,  however  complex,  is  susceptible  of 
musical  expression. 

V.  FORM. — Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear  it 
said  that  Mozart  is  a  great  master  of  form ;  that  Beetho- 
ven's form  is  at  times  obscure,  and  so  forth.     Of  course 
what  is  meant  is,  that  in  the  arrangement  and  develop- 
ment of  the  musical  phrases,  there  is  a  greater  or  less  fit- 
ness of  proportion  producing  an  effect  of  unity  or  inco- 
herence, as  the  case  may  be.    But  the  idea  of  musical  form 
can  be  made  intelligible  to  any  one  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  glance  at  so  simple  a  melody  as  the  "  Blue  Bells 
of  Scotland."     That  air  consists  of  four  phrases,  each  of 
which  is  divided  into  an  elation  and  depression.     The  first 
two  phrases  are  repeated;  the  third  and  fourth  occur  in 
the  middle ;  and  the  first  two  phrases  recur  at  the  close. 
We  might  express  the  form  numerically  in  this  way : 


DULL  MUSIC.  33 

THE  BLUE  BELLS  OF  SCOTLAND. 


'\/\   A/\  \//v  AA 

12  £          2      *  3          4  1         2 

Thus  music  appears  visibly  to  the  eye  to  possess  all  the 
essential  properties  of  emotion.  May  we  not  therefore 
say  that  the  secret  of  its  power  consists  in  this,  that  it 
alone  is  capable  of  giving  to  the  simplest,  the  subtlest, 
and  the  most  complex  emotions  alike,  that  full  and  satis- 
factory expression  through  sound  which  hitherto  it  has 
been  found  impossible  to  give  to  many  of  them  in  any 
other  way? 

When  alluding  to  the  succession  of  emotions  through 
9  which  we  pass  hour  after  hour,  I  called  attention 
Dull  MUSIC.  to  tne  fact  tnat  most  Of  them  were  so  unimpor- 
tant as  hardly  to  be  worth  the  name  of  emotion ;  that  yet, 
so  long  as  consciousness  lasts,  we  must  be  in  some  emo- 
tional state  or  other.  This  consideration  may  help  us  to 
understand  the  nature  of  a  good  deal  of  dull  music,  which 
is,  in  fact,  the  expression  of  what  may  be  called  neutral 
emotion.  How  strange  it  seems  to  some  people  that  com- 
posers should  think  it  worth  while  to  write  down  page 
after  page  which  is  devoid  of  interest !  But  if  we  lived 
more  in  the  composer's  world,  our  wonder  would  cease. 
We  should  soon  feel  with  him  that  our  neutral  states 
called  for  musical  expression  as  well  as  the  higher  Inten- 
sities and  Velocities  of  Elation  and  Depression.  Music 
does  not  cover  a  little  excited  bit  of  life,  but  the  whole  of 
life ;  and  the  mind,  trained  to  the  disciplined  expression 
of  emotion  in  music,  takes  delight  in  long  trains  of  quiet 
emotion,  conscientiously  worked  out  by  what  some  may 
8 


34  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

call  diffuse  and  dull  music.  There  is  a  quantity  of  music 
— of  Schubert,  for  instance — which  seems  hardly  written 
for  the  public  at  all.  It  is  the  expression  of  unimportant 
and  uninteresting  successions  of  emotion,  whose  only  merit 
consists  in  their  being  true  to  life;  and  until  we  have 
learned  to  think  of  every  moment  of  our  lives  as  being  a 
fit  subject  for  music,  we  shall  never  understand  the  Sound- 
reveries  of  Tone  Poets  who  were  in  the  habit  of  regarding 
the  whole  of  their  inner  life  as  melodic  and  symphonic, 
and  setting  vast  portions  of  it  to  music,  quite  regardless 
of  what  the  world  at  large  was  likely  to  say  or  think 
about  it. 

And  here  let  me  pause  to  say  that  I  am  perfectly  aware 
10  of  the  objections  that  may  be  urged  against  my 
Objections.  anaiy8j8  of  emotion  and  music  into  five  proper- 
ties. I  shall  be  told  that  my  explanation  is  inadequate ; 
that  it  is  impossible  to  analyze  a  great  many  emotions  at 
all;  that  music  is  often  in  the  same  way  incapable  of  be- 
ing cut  up  into  the  above-named  five  properties.  My  an- 
swer is,  that  it  is  only  possible  to  indicate  very  roughly 
by  words  and  symbols  the  bare  outlines  and  coarsest  forms 
of  the  general  laws  and  properties  of  emotion.  At  the  bot- 
tom of  some  historical  engraving  containing  the  portraits 
of  a  number  of  eminent  personages  we  may  have  some- 
times noticed  a  row  of  heads  in  outline  sketched,  without 
color,  shadow,  or  expression,  yet  docketed  with  the  names 
of  the  eminent  personages  above ;  so  we  have  sketched  in 
the  bare  outlines  of  emotion.  They  lie  before  us  dumb 
and  passionless.  They  are  no  more  than  skeleton  like- 
nesses of  what  can  not  be  given  in  mere  black  and  white. 
But  it  would  be  possible  to  show  by  diagrams  much  more 
clearly  the  enormous  detail  and  intricacy  of  musical  phra- 
seology covered  in  our  diagram  by  one  meagre  line  up 


MUSIC  AND  WORDS.  35 

and  down,  and  expressed  in  such  words  as  elation  and  de- 
pression; I  might  show  that  an  elation  can  consist  of  any 
length,  and  might  contain  within  itself  an  infinite  number 
of  subordinate  elations  and  depressions,  involving  different 
measures  of  velocity  and  intensity,  and  as  complicated  in 
form  and  variety  as  those  gossamer  webs  we  meet  with  on 
misty  commons  about  sunrise.  The  eye  gathers  some  no- 
tion of  the  capacities  of  sound  for  the  expression  of  the 
most  labyrinthine  and  complex  emotion  by  looking  at  a 
full  orchestral  score,  or  trying  to  follow  the  minute  inflex- 
ions made  by  the  baton  of  a  fine  conductor.  Such  things 
no  words  can  convey.  Language  is  given  us  to  indicate 
the  existence  of  a  vast  number  of  truths  which  can  only 
be  fully  realized  by  other  and  more  subtle  modes  of  ex- 
pression. 

As  emotion  exists  independently  of  Thought,  so  also 
n  does  Music.     But  Music  may  be  appropriate- 

SneMn8icbtnd  ty  wedded  to  Thought.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  the  music  itself  always  gains 
by  being  associated  with  words,  or  definite  ideas  of  any 
sort.  The  words  often  gain  a  good  deal,  but  the  music  is 
just  as  good  without  them.  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that 
images  and  thoughts  are  capable  of  exciting  the  deepest 
emotions,  but  they  are  inadequate  to  express  the  emotions 
they  excite.  Music  is  more  adequate,  and  hence  will  often 
seize  an  emotion  that  may  have  been  excited  by  an  image, 
and  partially  expressed  by  words — will  deepen  its  expres- 
sion, and,  by  so  doing,  will  excite  a  still  deeper  emotion. 
That  is  how  words  gain  by  being  set  to  music.  But  to  set 
words  to  music — as  in  Oratorio  or  Opera,  or  any  kind  of 
song — is,  in  fact,  to  mix  two  arts  together.  On  the  whole, 
a  striking  effect  may  be  produced,  but,  in  reality,  it  is  at 
the  expense  of  the  purity  of  each  art.  Poetry  is  a  great 


36  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

art ;  so  is  music :  but  as  a  medium  for  emotion,  each  is 
greater  alone  than  in  company,  although  various  good  ends 
are  obtained  by  linking  the  two  together,  providing  that 
the  words  are  kept  in  subordination  to  the  greater  expres- 
sion-medium of  music.  Even  then  they  are  apt  to  hinder 
the  development  of  the  music.  What  an  amount  of  feeble 
recitative  and  incoherent  choral  writing  do  we  not  owe  to 
the  clumsy  endeavors  of  even  good  composers  to  wed  mu- 
sic to  words !  How  often  is  the  poet  hampered  by  the 
composer,  and  the  composer  by  the  poet !  And  yet  when 
we  remember  such  operas  as  Don  Giovanni,  and  such  ora- 
torios as  the  Elijah^  and  note  how  instinctively  the  com- 
poser has  treated  the  leading  emotions,  without  being  ham- 
pered by  the  words  and  the  sentences  of  the  libretto,  we 
are  bound  to  admit  that  the  objections  to  the  mixed  art 
may  be  to  a  great  extent  overcome,  while  its  advantages 
are  obvious.  Words,  situations,  and  ideas  are  very  useful 
to  the  composer,  and  still  more  so  to  his  audience ;  for  a 
story,  or  the  bare  suggestion  of  some  situation,  provides  a 
good  skeleton  form,  and  serves  to  awaken  trains  of  emo- 
tion, which  music  is  all-powerful  to  deepen ;  and  while  the 
words  are  being  declaimed,  the  music  has  already  passed 
into  depths  of  feeling  beyond  the  control  of  words.  Let 
any  one  look  at  the  four  parts  of  a  chorus,  and  see  the 
kind  of  subordinate  use  made  of  the  words.  After  the  first 
glance  no  one  thinks  much  about  the  words:  they  come 
in  more  as  incidents  of  vocalization  than  of  thought,  and 
are  piled  up  often  without  sense,  and  repeated  by  the  dif- 
ferent voices  pele-mele.  And  yet  the  first  sentence  of  such 
choruses  as  "Rex  Tremende,"  in  the  Requiem,  or  "The 
night  is  departing,"  in  the  Lobgesang,  is  an  immense  as- 
sistance to  the  hearer,  striking  the  key-note  to  the  emo- 
tions which  music  alone  can  fully  express.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  we  turn  to  the  pure  art,  and  inquire  what  good 


MUSIC  AND  WORDS.  37 

could  any  words  do  to  a  symphony  of  Beethoven,  it  must 
be  answered,  less  and  less  good  just  in  proportion  as  the 
symphony  itself  is  musically  appreciated.  Even  an  opera 
is  largely  independent  of  words,  and  depends  for  its  suc- 
cess, not  upon  the  poetry  of  the  libretto,  or  even  the  scen- 
ery or  the  plot,  but  upon  its  emotional  range — i.  e.,  upon 
the  region  which  is  dominated  by  the  musical  element. 
Has  the  reader  never  witnessed  with  satisfaction  a  fine 
opera,  the  words  of  which  he  could  not  understand,  and 
whose  plot  he  was  entirely  unable  to  follow  ?  Has  he  nev- 
er seen  a  musician,  in  estimating  a  new  song,  run  through 
it  rapidly  on  the  piano,  and  then  turn  back  to  the  begin- 
ning to  see  what  the  words  were  all  about  ?  We  may  be 
sure,  long  before  he  has  read  the  words  he  will  have  esti- 
mated the  value  of  the  song.  The  words  were  good  to  set 
the  composer's  emotions  a-going.  They  are  interesting  to 
his  audience  exactly  in  proportion  to  its  ignorance  of,  and 
indifference  to,  music.  Persons  who  know  and  care  little 
about  music  are  always  very  particular  about  the  words 
of  a  song.  They  want  to  know  what  it  all  means — the 
words  will  tell  them,  of  course.  They  are  naturally  glad 
to  find  something  they  can  understand ;  yet  all  the  while 
the  open  secret  which  they  will  never  read  lies  in  the  mu- 
sic, not  the  words.  The  title  "  Songs  without  Words," 
which  Mendelssohn  has  given  to  his  six  books  of  musical 
idylls,  is  full  of  delicate  raillery,  aimed  good-humoredly 
enough  at  the  non- musical  world.  "A  'song  without 
words !'  What  an  idea  !  How  can  such  a  song  be  possi- 
ble ?"  cries  one.  "  What  more  perfect  song  could  be  im- 
agined ?"  exclaims  another.  If  we  are  to  have  words  to 
songs,  let  us  subordinate  the  thought  to  the  emotion.  The 
best  words  to  music  are  those  which  contain  the  fewest 
number  of  thoughts  and  the  greatest  number  of  emotions. 
Such  are  the  shorter  poems  of  Goethe,  of  Heine,  of  Byron, 


38  MUSIC,  EMOTIOy,  AXD  MORALS. 

and,  as  a  consequence,  it  is  notorious  that  Beethoven, 
Schubert,  Mendelssohn,  and  Schumann  between  them  have, 
with  pardonable  avidity,  set  to  music  almost  all  these  pre- 
cious lyrics. 

The  only  possible  rival  to  Sound  as  a  vehicle  for  pure 
12.          emotion  is  Color,  but  up  to  the  present  time  no 

Sound-art  and  ,  .  »      .  •  «  -,     • 

Color-art.  art  has  been  invented  which  stands  in  exactly 
the  same  relation  to  color  as  music  does  to  sound.  No 
one  who  has  ever  attentively  watched  a  sunset  can  fail  to 
have  noticed  that  color,  as  well  as  sound,  possesses  all  the 
five  qualities  which  belong  to  emotion :  the  passing  of  dark 
tints  into  bright  ones  corresponds  to  Elation  and  Depres- 
sion. The  palpitations  of  light  and  mobility  of  hues  give 
Velocity,  poorness  or  richness  of  the  same  color  constitutes 
its  Intensity,  the  presence  of  more  than  one  color  gives  Va- 
riety, while  Form  is  determined  by  the  various  degrees  of 
space  occupied  by  the  different  colors.  Yet  there  exists  no 
color-art  as  a  language  of  pure  emotion.  The  art  of  paint- 
ing has  hitherto  always  been  dependent  upon  definite  ideas, 
faces,  cliffs,  clouds,  incidents.  Present  by  the  engraver's 
art  a  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  or  even  a  Turner,  and  although 
the  spectator  has  no  notion  of  the  coloring  of  the  original, 
he  gets  some  notion  of  the  work  because  the  color  was  an 
accessory — most  important,  no  doubt,  but  still  an  accessory 
— not  an  essential  of  the  artist's  thought.  But  to  present 
a  symphony  without  sound,  or  without  the  notes  or  sym- 
bols which,  through  the  eye,  convey  to  the  ear  sound,  is 
impossible,  because  sound,  heard  or  conceived,  is  not  the 
accessory,  but  the  essential,  of  the  composer's  work.  The 
composer's  art  makes  sound  into  a  language  of  pure  emo- 
tion. The  painter's  art  uses  color  only  as  the  accessory  of 
emotion.  No  method  has  yet  been  discovered  of  arrang- 
ing color  by  itself  for  the  eye,  as  the  musician's  art  an 


SOUND- ART  AND  COLOR-ART.  39 

ranges  sound  for  the  ear.  We  have  no  color  pictures  de' 
pending  solely  upon  color  as  we  have  symphonies  depend- 
ing solely  upon  sound.  In  Turner's  works  we  find  the 
nearest  approach ;  but  even  he,  by  the  necessary  limitation 
of  his  art,  is  without  the  property  of  velocity.  The  canvas 
does  not  change  to  the  eye — all  that  is,  is  presented  simul- 
taneously as  in  one  complex  chord,  and  thus  the  charm  of 
velocity,  which  is  so  great  a  property  in  emotion,  and 
which  might  belong  to  a  color-art,  is  denied  to  the  painter. 
Color  now  stands  in  the  same  kind  of  relation  to  the  paint- 
er's art  as  Sound  among  the  Greeks  did  to  the  art  of  the 
gymnast.  But  just  as  we  speak  of  the  classic  age  as  a  time 
long  before  the  era  of  real  music,  so  by-and-by  posterity 
may  allude  to  the  present  age  as  an  age  before  the  color- 
art  was  known — an  age  in  which  color  had  not  yet  been 
developed  into  a  language  of  pure  emotion,  but  simply 
used  as  an  accessory  to  drawing,  as  music  was  once  to 
bodily  exercise  and  rhythmic  recitation.  And  here  I  will 
express  my  conviction  that  a  Color-art  exactly  analogous 
to  the  Sound-art  of  music  is  possible,  and  is  among  the 
arts  which  have  to  be  traversed  in  the  future,  as  Sculpture, 
Architecture,  Painting,  and  Music  have  been  in  the  past. 
Nor  do  I  see  why  it  should  not  equal  any  of  these  in  the 
splendor  of  its  results  and  variety  of  its  applications.  Had 
we  but  a  system  of  color-notation  which  would  as  intensely 
and  instantaneously  connect  itself  with  every  possible  tint, 
and  possess  the  power  of  combining  colors  before  the  mind's 
eye,  as  a  page  of  music  combines  sounds  through  the  eye 
to  the  mind's  ear — had  we  but  instruments,  or  some  ap- 
propriate art-mechanism  for  rendering  such  color-notation 
into  real  waves  of  color  before  the  bodily  eye,  we  should 
then  have  actually  realized  a  new  art,  the  extent  and  gran- 
deur of  whose  developments  it  is  simply  impossible  to  es- 
timate. The  reader,  whose  eye  is  passionately  responsive 


40  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

to  color,  may  gain  some  faint  anticipation  of  the  Color-art 
of  the  future  if  he  will  try  to  recall  the  kind  of  impression 
made  upon  him  by  the  exquisite  tints  painted  upon  the 
dark  curtain  of  the  night  at  a  display  of  fireworks.  I  se- 
lect fireworks  as  an  illustration  in  preference  to  the  most 
gorgeous  sunset,  because  I  am  not  speaking  of  Nature,  but 
Art — that  is  to  say,  something  into  the  composition  of 
which  the  mind  of  man  has  entered,  and  whose  very  mean- 
ing depends  upon  its  bearing  the  evidences  of  human  de- 
signs ;  and  I  select  pyrotechny,  instead  of  painting  of  any 
kind,  because  in  it  we  get  the  important  emotional  prop- 
erty of  velocity,  necessarily  absent  from  fixed  coloring. 

At  such  a  display  as  I  have  mentioned,  we  are,  in  fact, 
present  at  the  most  astonishing  revelations  of  Light  and 
Color.  The  effects  produced  are  indeed  often  associated 
with  vulgar  patterns,  loud  noises,  and  the  most  coarse  and 
stupid  contrasts.  Sometimes  the  combinations  are  felici- 
tous for  a  moment,  and  by  the  merest  chance ;  but  usual- 
ly they  are  chaotic,  inherent,  discordant,  and  supportable 
only  owing  to  the  splendor  of  the  materials  employed.  But 
what  a  majestic  Symphony  might  not  be  played  with  such 
orchestral  blazes  of  incomparable  hues !  what  delicate  mel- 
odies composed  of  single  floating  lights,  changing  and  melt- 
ing from  one  slow  intensity  to  another  through  the  dark, 
until  some  tender  dawn  of  opal  from  below  might  perchance 
receive  the  last  fluttering  pulse  of  ruby  light,  and  prepare 
the  eye  for  some  new  passage  of  exquisite  color !  Why 
should  we  not  go  down  to  the  Palace  of  the  People,  and 
assist  at  a  real  Color-prelude  or  Symphony,  as  we  now  go 
down  to  hear  a  work  by  Mozart  or  Mendelssohn  ?  But  the 
Color-art  must  first  be  constituted,  its  symbols  and  phrase- 
ology discovered,  its  instruments  invented,  and  its  com- 
posers bora.  Up  to  that  time,  music  will  have  no  rival  as 
an  Art-medium  of  emotion. 


IfUSIC  AND  THE  AQE.  41 

m. 

MODERN  Music  is  the  last  great  legacy  which  Rome  has 
is.       left  to  the  world.     It  is  also  remarkable  as  a  dis- 

Music  and     .  ....  ~. 

the  Age.  tmct  product  of  modern  civilization.  Christianity 
ended  by  producing  that  peculiar  passion  for  self-analysis, 
that  rage  for  the  anatomy  of  emotion,  and  that  reverence 
for  the  individual  soul  which  was  almost  entirely  unknown 
to  the  ancient  world.  The  life  of  the  Greek  was  exceed- 
ingly simple  and  objective.  His  art  represented  the  phys- 
ical beauty  in  which  he  delighted ;  but  the  faces  of  his 
statues  were  usually  without  emotion.  His  poetry  was 
the  expression  of  strong  rather  than  subtle  feeling.  He 
delighted  in  dramas  with  but  few  characters  and  with 
hardly  any  plot.  He  could  have  but  little  need  of  music 
to  express  his  emotions,  for  they  could  be  adequately  ren- 
dered by  sculpture  and  recitation.  Ancient  Rome,  in  its 
best  times,  had  no  sympathy  with  any  kind  of  art ;  to  con- 
quer and  to  make  laws  for  the  conquered  was  her  peculiar 
mission.  Still  less  than  Greece  could  she  stand  in  need  of 
a  special  language  for  her  emotions,  which  were  of  a  sim- 
ple, austere,  and  practical  character,  and  found  in  the  daily 
duties  of  the  citizen-life  a  sufficient  outlet  of  expression. 
Christianity,  by  dwelling  especially  upon  the  sanctity  of 
the  individual  life,  deepened  the  channels  of  natural  feel- 
ing, and  unfolded  capacities  of  emotion  which  strove  in 
vain  for  any  articulate  expression.*  But  Christianity  had 
to  pass  through  several  stages  before  she  met  with  Modern 
Music.  The  active  missionary  spirit  had  first  to  subside 
and  be  replaced  by  the  otiose  and  contemplative  mood  be- 
fore the  need  of  any  elaborate  Art-medium  of  expression 
could  make  itself  felt  in  Christendom.  Unrest  is  fatal  to 
Art.  It  was  in  the  peaceful  seclusion  of  monastic  life  that 
*  See  Second  Book. — I.  Introduction  to  Modern  Music. 


42  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

a  new  tonal  system  and  a  sound  method  of  instruction  first 
arose.  From  being  intensely  objective  and  practical,  the 
genius  of  Christianity  became  intensely  meditative,  and  in- 
trospective, and  mystical.  The  Roman  monks  may  thus 
be  said  to  have  created  modern  music.  The  devotee,  re- 
lieved from  poverty  and  delivered  from  persecution,  had 
time  to  examine  what  was  going  on  within  him,  to  chroni- 
cle the  different  emotional  atmospheres  of  his  ecstasy,  to 
note  the  elations  and  depressions  of  the  religious  life,  the 
velocity  of  its  aspirations,  the  intensity  of  its  enthusiasms, 
the  complex  struggle  forever  raging  between  the  spirit  and 
the  flesh,  and  the  ever-changing  proportions  and  forms  as- 
sumed by  one  and  the  other.  Out  of  these  experiences  at 
length  arose  the  desire  for  art-expression.  Gothic  archi- 
tecture supplied  one  form,  and  the  Italian  schools  of  paint- 
ing another ;  but  already  the  key-note  of  a  more  perfect 
emotional  language  had  been  struck,  which  was  destined 
to  supply  an  unparalleled  mode  of  utterance  both  for  the 
Church  and  the  World.  Such  a  language  would  be  valua- 
ble exactly  in  proportion  to  the  complexity  of  thought  and 
feeling  to  be  expressed  and  the  desire  for  its  expression. 
The  fusion  of  the  Church  and  the  World  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation  was  at  once  the  type  and  the  starting-point 
of  all  those  mixed  and  powerful  influences  which  charac- 
terize what  we  call  Modern  Civilization,  and  it  is  remarka- 
ble that  the  sceptre  of  music  should  have  passed  from  fall- 
en Rome  to  free  Germany  just  at  the  time  when  Rome 
showed  herself  most  incompetent  to  understand  and  cope 
with  the  rising  Spirit  of  the  New  Age,  which  Germany  may 
almost  be  said  to  have  created. 

If  we  were  now  asked  roughly  to  define  what  we  mean 
by  the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  we  should  say  the  genius  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  analytic.  There  is  hardly  any  thing 
on  earth  which  Goethe — the  very  incarnation  of  modern 


MUSIC  AND  THE  AGE.  43 

culture — has  not  done  something  toward  analyzing.  Sci- 
entific research  has  taken  complete  possession  of  the  unex- 
plored regions  of  the  physical  world.  Kant  and  Hegel 
have  endeavored  to  define  the  limits  of  the  pure  reason. 
Swedenborg  strove  to  give  law  and  system  to  the  most 
abnormal  states  of  human  consciousness.  There  is  not  an 
aspect  of  nature,  or  complication  of  character,  or  contrast 
of  thought  and  feeling,  which  has  not  been  delineated  by 
modern  novelists  and  painted  by  modern  artists,  while  the 
national  poets  of  Europe,  whether  we  think  of  Goethe, 
Heine,  Lamartine,  De  Musset,  or  our  own  living  poets — 
Tennyson  and  Browning  —  have  all  shown  the  strongest 
disposition  to  probe  and  explore  the  hidden  mysteries  of 
thought  and  feeling,  to  arrange  and  rearrange  the  insoluble 
problems  of  life,  which  never  seemed  so  insoluble  as  now, 
to  present  facts  with  all  their  by-play,  to  trace  emotion 
through  all  its  intricate  windings,  and  describe  the  varia- 
tions of  the  soul's  temperature  from  its  most  fiery  heats 
down  to  its  most  glacial  intensities. 

If  I  were  asked  to  select  two  poems  most  characteristic 
of  the  emotional  tendencies  of  this  age,  I  should  select  the 
"  In  Memoriam"  and  the  "  Ring  and  the  Book ;"  for  in 
both  these  works  the  introspective  tendency  and  the  rest- 
less endeavor  to  present,  with  minute  fidelity,  an  immense 
crowd  of  feelings  with  something  like  a  symphonic  unity 
of  effect,  culminate.  Art,  literature,  and  science  are  all  re- 
dundant with  the  same  analytical  and  emotional  tenden- 
cies. Is  it  wonderful  that  such  an  age  should  be  the  very 
age  in  which  music,  at  once  an  analytical  Science  and  a 
pure  Art-medium  of  Emotion,  has,  with  a  rapidity  like  that 
of  sculpture  in  Greece  or  painting  in  Italy,  suddenly  reach- 
ed its  highest  perfection  ?  Music  is  pre-eminently  the  art 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  because  it  is  in  a  supreme  man- 
ner responsive  to  the  emotional  wants,  the  mixed  aspira- 
tions, and  the  passionate  self-consciousness  of  The  Asje. 


44  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

IV. 

BUT  if  Music  stands  in  such  definite  and  important  rela- 
14.  tions  to  The  Age,  it  becomes  highly  desirable  to 
Morals,  know  whether  Music  has  any  definite  connection 
with  Morality,  and,  if  so,  what  that  connection  really  is. 
Of  course  this  question  is  part  of  a  much  wider  subject, 
viz.,  The  general  connection  between  Art  and  Morals.  We 
must  often  have  heard  people  anxiously  inquiring, "  Must 
good  art  be  moral  ?  may  it  be  un-moral  ?"  Or  perhaps  the 
problem  is  more  often  stated  thus:  "Is  the  object  of  Art 
to  produce  Pleasure  or  to  promote  Morality?"  To  this 
general  question  the  best  answer  is, "  Art  should  do  both." 
But  before  we  can  discuss  the  subject  at  all,  another  ques- 
tion has  to  be  answered,  namely,  What  is  the  origin  of 
Art  ?  Without  attempting  any  exhaustive  research,  we 
may  remind  the  reader  that  all  The  Arts  arise  out  of  a 
certain  instinct,  which  impels  man  to  make  an  appeal  to 
the  senses  by  expressing  his  thoughts  and  emotions  in 
some  external  form.  When  his  thoughts  and  emotions  hap- 
pen to  be  worthily  directed  toward  great  subjects,  his  Art 
will  have  dignity ;  when,  in  addition  to  being  happily  and 
wisely  selected,  what  he  aims  at  is  represented  with  fidel- 
ity and  skill,  his  Art  will  have  aesthetic  worth ;  and  when 
its  general  tendency  is  good,  his  Art  may  be  called  moral. 
It  is  quite  clear  from  this  that  Morality  is  a  quality  which 
Art  may  or  may  not  possess ;  it  does  not,  except  in  a  very 
secondary  sense,  belong  to  its  constitution.  The  Morality 
depends  upon  the  Artist,  not  upon  the  Art.  If  a  man  is  a 
good  man,  the  tendency  of  his  work  will  probably  be  mor- 
al ;  and  if  a  bad  man,  it  will  most  likely  be  the  reverse ; 
but  you  may  have  a  work  of  Art  at  one  and  the  same  time 
aesthetically  good  and  morally  bad.  Provided  there  be 
intelligent  selection,  fidelity,  and  skill,  although  the  sub- 


ART  AND  MORALS.  45 

ject  be  presented  in  a  manner  disastrous  to  morals,  the 
Art  will  be  in  a  sense  good.  Even  then  we  may  say  that 
its  goodness  depends  upon  the  moral  qualities  of  patience, 
industry,  and  truthfulness ;  but  we  can  not  call  it  moral 
Art,  because  these  qualities  have  been  used  without  regard 
to,  or  in  defiance  of,  Morality.  Those  who  are  content  to 
value  art  merely  for  its  power  of  representing  the  imagina- 
tions of  a  man's  heart  through  the  senses  are  perfectly  en 
titled  to  say  that  Art  need  not  aim  at  promoting  morals ; 
that  it  is  in  its  nature  an  un-moral  thing,  and  of  course  it 
is  so  in  the  same  sense  in  which  a  drug  given  one  day  as 
a  poison  and  another  day  as  a  medicine  is  in  itself  perfect- 
ly un-moral.  The  morality  lies  in  the  administration,  and 
comes  from  a  quality  which  belongs,  not  to  the  drug,  but 
to  the  agent  who  administers  it.  In  like  manner,  the  mor- 
ality of  an  artist's  work  depends  upon  the  good  intention 
of  the  artist,  as  displayed  in  the  general  effect  which  the 
expression  of  his  thoughts  and  emotions  is  calculated  to 
produce.  Thus,  while  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  confuse  the 
nature  and  constitution  of  Art  with  its  effects  and  possi- 
ble tendencies  by  asking  such  inconsequent  questions  as 
whether  it  is  meant  to  produce  Pleasure  or  to  promote 
Morality,  it  seems  to  us  a  still  graver  mistake  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  the  region  of  Art  has  every  where  points  of 
contact  with  the  region  of  Morals,  and  that  its  dignity  and 
helpfulness  to  man  depend  not  only  upon  a  propitious  se- 
lection and  happy  execution,  but  also  upon  the  manifest 
aims  and  objects  of  the  work  itself. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  the  Region  of  Morals  ?    When 

15.      a  man  is  placed  at  the  equator,  and  told  to  travel 

defined,   north  or  south,  his  first  question  will  be,  which  is 

the  north  pole  and  which  is  the  south  pole  ?  and,  unless  he 

makes  up  his  mind  on  this  preliminary  question,  he  can 


46  MUSIC,  £J10T10Xt  AXD  MORALS. 

not  tell  whether  his  steps  are  leading  him  right  or  wrong. 
And  before  we  begin  to  speculate  about  the  good  and  evil 
tendencies  of  art,  we  must,  in  like  manner,  be  able  to  point 
to  the  poles  of  Good  and  Evil  themselves.  Of  course  peo- 
ple will  dispute  endlessly  about  the  application  of  princi- 
ples, just  as  people  may  select  different  roads  to  get  to  the 
north  and  south,  but  the  poles  and  their  general  where- 
abouts must  be  assumed  before  any  kind  of  certain  progress 
can  be  made. 

I  must  here  ask  the  reader  to  give  his  assent  to  some 
general  principles.  I  must  induce  him  to  admit,  for  in- 
stance, that  moral  health  consists  in  a  certain  activity  com- 
bined with  the  relative  subordination  of  all  his  faculties — 
in  a  self-control  not  checking  development,  but  assisting 
it;  enabling  him  at  once  to  prevent  any  disastrous  vio- 
lence through  the  rebellion  of  the  senses,  while  giving  fair 
play  to  these  too  often  pampered  menials.  And,  above  all, 
I  must  ask  him  to  condemn  as  immoral  the  deliberate  cul- 
tivation of  unbalanced  emotions  merely  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
ducing pleasure.  Our  rough  scheme  of  morals,  or  our  gen- 
eral idea  of  right  and  wrong,  will  moreover  insist  upon  the 
healthful  activity  of  each  individual  according  to  his  special 
gifts  and  capacities,  directed  in  such  a  way  as  to  respect 
and  promote  the  healthful  activity  of  society  in  general. 
This  may  be  thought  a  sufficiently  vague  statement  of 
morals,  but  it  is  quite  definite  enough  for  our  present  pur- 
pose, and  will  be  found  to  cover  most  cases  in  point.  I 
will  venture  to  call  special  attention  to  the  assertion  that 
moral  health  is  consistent  with  development  according  tc 
special  gifts  and  capacities.  It  will  not  do  to  make  moral 
health  consist  only  in  the  equal  development  of  all  a  man's 
faculties ;  he  may  be  fitted  to  excel  in  some  one  direction; 
we  must  admit  the  principle  of  specialty  in  Human  Na- 
ture, and,  if  a  man  be  born  to  excel  in  eloquence,  we  must, 


MORALITY  DEFINED.  47 

if  necessary,  let  him  off  his  arithmetic ;  or  it  he  is  to  be  a 
good  engineer,  we  must  excuse  him  his  arts  and  literature, 
if  needful.  Will  that  be  healthy  development  ?  Well,  it 
may  be  on  the  whole,  considering  the  limits  and  imperfec- 
tions of  our  present  state,  the  best  kind  of  development  ot 
which  he  is  capable ;  for  it  is  morally  more  healthful  to  ar- 
rive at  perfection  in  one  department  than  to  enjoy  a  puny 
mediocrity,  or  even  an  inferior  excellence  in  several,  and 
Nature  herself  guides  us  to  this  conclusion  by  signally  en- 
dowing men  with  special  faculties.  For  this  reason,  our 
notion  of  moral  health  should  include  a  special  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  according  to  his  gifts.  But  as  man 
is  not  a  unit,  but  a  member  of  society,  his  activity  has  to 
be  judged  not  only  with  a  reference  to  himself,  but  also 
with  reference  to  his  fellows ;  and  here  the  word  healthful 
supplies  us  with  a  key-note,  for  what  is  really  morally 
healthful  for  the  individual  will  be  found,  as  a  general  rule, 
healthful  to  society  at  large.  The  man,  for  instance,  whose 
art  is  chiefly  devoted  to  the  delineation  of  love  under  its 
most  self-indulgent  and  least  ennobling  aspects  must  be 
called  an  immoral  artist,  not  because  he  paints  the  soft 
side  of  love,  which  is  legitimately  entitled  to  have  a  soft 
side  to  it,  but  because  he  dwells  exclusively  and  obtrusive- 
ly, for  the  mere  sake  of  producing  pleasure,  upon  that  side 
of  love  which,  when  unrestrained  and  exaggerated,  is  of 
all  others  most  calculated  to  injure  the  moral  health,  both 
of  the  individual  and  of  society  at  large.  No  doubt  every 
thing  may  be  represented  in  art,  and  when  once  a  subject 
has  been  chosen,  nothing  is  gained  by  a  timorous  holding 
back  of  any  thing  which  adds  to  its  power  as  a  faithful 
representation  of  the  artist's  conception.  But  the  morali- 
ty of  the  work  must  depend  upon  the  way  in  which  the 
conception,  as  presented,  is  calculated  to  affect  the  moral 
health  of  society.  Now,  in  attempting  to  judge  the  etbv 


48  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

cal  value  of  a  work  of  art,  we  must,  as  I  have  said,  have  a 
general  notion  of  what  we  mean  by  good  and  evil ;  then 
we  shall  have  to  look  at  the  work  itself,  not  with  reference 
merely  to  the  actual  good  and  evil  expressed  by  it,  but  to 
the  proportions  in  which  the  two  are  mixed,  and,  above 
all,  to  the  kind  of  sympathy  with  which  they  are  intended 
to  be  viewed. 

In  some  of  the  Gothic  cathedrals  we  may  have  noticed 
16.      strange  figures  hiding  in  nooks  and  corners,  or  ob- 

Morality 

applied,  trusively  claiming  attention  as  water-spouts.  Some 
of  them  are  revolting  enough,  but  they  are  not  to  be  sev- 
ered from  their  connection  with  the  whole  building.  That 
is  the  work  of  art;  these  are  but  the  details,  and  only  some 
of  the  details.  How  many  statues  are  there  in  all  those 
niches  ? — let  us  say  a  thousand.  You  shall  find  seventy 
pure  Virgins  praying  in  long  robes,  and  forty  Monks,  and 
Apostles,  and  Bishops,  and  Angels  in  choirs,  and  Archan- 
gels standing  high  and  alone  upon  lofty  fa9ade,  and  pinna- 
cle, and  tower ;  and  round  the  corner  of  the  roof  shall  be 
two  devils  prowling,  or  a  hideous-looking  villain  in  great 
pain,  or  (as  in  Chester  Cathedral)  there  may  be  a  propor- 
tion— a  very  small  proportion — of  obscene  figures,  hard, 
and  true,  and  pitiless.  "What  scandalous  subjects  for 
church  decoration  !"  some  may  exclaim ;  yet  the  whole  im- 
pression produced  is  a  profoundly  moral  one.  The  sculp- 
tor has  given  you  the  life  he  saw ;  but  he  has  given  it  from 
a  really  high  stand-point,  and  all  is  moral,  because  all  is  in 
healthy  proportion.  There  is  degradation,  but  there  is  also 
divine  beauty ;  there  is  passionate  and  despairing  sin,  but 
there  is  also  calmness  and  victory ;  there  are  devils,  but 
they  are  infinitely  outnumbered  by  angels ;  there  lurks  the 
blur  of  human  depravity,  but  as  we  pass  out  beneath 
groups  of  long-robed  saints  in  prayer,  the  thought  of  sin 


MORALITY  APPLIED.  49 

fades  out  before  a  dream  of  divine  purity  and  peace.  We 
can  see  what  the  artist  loved  and  what  he  taught ;  that  is 
the  right  test,  and  we  may  take  any  man's  work  as  a  whole, 
and  apply  that  test  fearlessly.  If  we  would  kuow  whether 
a  work  of  art  is  moral  or  not,  let  us  ask  such  questions  as 
these :  Does  the  artist  show  that  his  sympathies  lie  with 
an  unwholesome  preponderance  of  horrible,  degraded,  or 
of  simply  pleasurable,  as  distinct  from  healthy,  emotions  ? 
Is  he  for  whipping  the  jaded  senses  to  their  work,  or  mere- 
ly for  rejoicing  in  the  highest  activity  of  their  healthful  ex- 
ercise ?  Does  he  love  what  is  good  while  acknowledging 
the  existence  of  evil,  or  does  he  delight  in  what  is  evil,  and 
merely  introduce  what  is  good  for  the  vicious  sake  of 
trampling  upon  it. 

How  differently  may  the  same  subject  involving  human 
sin  be  treated !  Given,  for  instance,  the  history  of  a  crime; 
one  man  will  represent  a  bad  action  as  so  pleasurable  and 
attractive  as  to  make  us  forget  its  criminality,  while  anoth- 
er, without  flinching  from  descriptive  fidelity,  will  mix  his 
proportions  of  good  and  evil,  and  distribute  his  sympathies 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  deprive  us  of  all  satisfaction  in  con. 
templating  the  wrong,  and  inspire  us  with  a  wholesome 
horror  of  the  crime  involved.  I  need  only  refer  to  the  ca- 
tastrophe in  Lord  Lytton's  "  Alice,  or  the  Mysteries,"  and 
in  George  Eliot's  "Adam  Bede,"  as  illustrations  of  the  pro- 
foundly immoral  and  moral  treatment  of  the  same  subject. 
The  morbid  taste  which  French  and  Belgian  painters  ex- 
hibit for  scenes  of  bloodshed  and  murder  is  another  in- 
stance of  the  way  in  which  art  becomes  immoral  by  stimu- 
lating an  unwholesome  appetite  for  horrors.  Tintoret's 
"  Plague  of  Milan"  is  horrible  enough,  but  there  is  this  dif- 
ference between  that  picture  and  such  a  picture  as  the  two 
decapitated  corpses  of  Counts  Egmont  and  Horn,  by  Louis 
Gallait — the  Italian  masterpiece  reflects  the  profound  im- 
4 


50  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

pression  made  upon  a  people  suffering  from  a  great  na- 
tional calamity,  while  the  other  is  simply  a  disgusting  sop 
cast  forth  to  a  demoralized  and  bloodthirsty  Parisian  pop- 
ulace. 

The  best  art  is  like  Shakspeare's  art,  and  Titian's  art, 
always  true  to  the  great,  glad  aboriginal  instincts  of  our 
nature,  severely  faithful  to  its  foibles,  never  representing 
disease  in  the  guise  of  health,  never  rejoicing  in  the  exer- 
cise of  morbid  fancy,  many-sided  without  being  unbal- 
anced, tender  without  weakness,  and  forcible  without  ever 
losing  the  fine  sense  of  proportion.  Nothing  can  be  falser 
than  to  suppose  that  morality  is  served  by  representing 
facts  other  than  they  are ;  no  emasculated  picture  of  life 
can  be  moral :  it  may  be  meaningless,  and  it  is  sure  to  be 
false.  No ;  we  must  stand  upon  the  holy  hill  with  hands 
uplifted  like  those  of  Moses,  and  see  the  battle  of  Good 
against  Evil  with  a  deep  and  inexhaustible  sympathy  for 
righteousness,  and  a  sense  of  triumph  and  victory  in  our 
hearts.  The  highest  service  that  art  can  accomplish  for 
man  is  to  become  at  once  the  voice  of  his  nobler  aspira- 
tions and  the  steady  disciplinarian  of  his  emotions,  and  it 
is  with  this  mission,  rather  than  with  any  aesthetic  perfec- 
tion, that  we  are  at  present  concerned. 

I  proceed  to  ask  how  Music,  which  I  have  shown  to  be 
the  special  Art-medium  of  Emotion,  is  capable,  in  common 
with  all  the  other  arts,  of  exercising  by  itself  moral  and 
immoral  functions. 

V. 

WHEN  music  becomes  a  mixed  art — that  is  to  say,  when 
IT.       it  is  wedded  to  words,  and  associated  with  definite 

Music  and 

Morality,  ideas  —  when  it  is  made  the  accompaniment  of 
scenes  which  in  themselves  are  calculated  to  work  power- 
fully for  good  or  evil  upon  the  emotions — then  it  is  as  easy 


MUSIC  AND  MORALITY.  5j 

to  see  how  music  is  a  moral  or  an  immoral  agent  as  it  is 
to  decide  upon  the  tendency  of  a  picture  or  a  poem..  The 
song  is  patriotic,  or  languishing,  or  comic,  and  in  each  case 
the  music  is  used,  not  as  a  primary  agent  to  originate,  but 
as  a  powerful  secondary  agent  to  deepen  and  intensify  the 
emotion  already  awakened  by  the  words  of  the  song  or 
the  operatic  situation.  But  how  can  a  piece  of  music,  like 
a  picture,  be  in  itself  moral,  immoral,  sublime  or  degraded, 
trivial  or  dignified  ?  Must  it  not  entirely  depend  for  such 
qualities  as  these  upon  the  definite  thoughts  and  images 
with  which  it  happens  to  be  associated?  I  will  answer 
this  question  by  reminding  the  reader  of  another.  Does 
emotion  itself  always  need  definite  thoughts  and  images 
before  it  can  become  healthful  or  harmful — in  other  words, 
moral  or  immoral  ?  I  have  endeavored,  Book  First,  II.,  6, 
7,  to  show  that  there  was  a  region  of  abstract  emotion 
in  human  nature  constantly  indeed  traversed  by  definite 
thoughts,  but  not  dependent  upon  them  for  its  existence ; 
that  this  region  of  emotion  consisted  of  infinite  varieties 
of  mental  temperature ;  that  upon  these  temperatures  or 
atmospheres  of  the  soul  depended  the  degree,  and  often 
the  kind  of  actions  of  which  at  different  moments  we  were 
capable,  and  that,  quite  apart  from  definite  ideas,  the  emo- 
tional region  might  be  dull,  apathetic,  eager,  brooding,  se- 
vere, resolute,  impulsive,  etc.,  but  that  each  one  of  these 
states  might  exist  and  pass  without  culminating  in  any 
kind  of  action,  or  being  clothed  with  any  appropriate  set 
of  ideas.  But  if  this  much  be  granted,  who  will  deny  that 
the  experience  of  such  Soul-atmospheres  must  leave  a  defi- 
nite impress  upon  the  character  ?  For  example,  the  expe- 
rience of  sustained  languor  without  an  effort  at  acquiring 
a  more  vigorous  impulse  will  be  deleterious ;  excitement 
passing  into  calmness — vague  fear  or  discomfort  giving 
place  to  deep  and  satisfied  feelings  of  peace  or  a  sense  of 


52  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

exhaustion,  followed  by  recreation  and  revival  of  power — 
such  will  be  beneficial,  productive,  on  the  whole,  of  a  hope- 
ful and  encouraging  temper  of  mind;  and  it  is  just  as  pos- 
sible to  classify  these  various  atmospheric  states  of  mind 
as  wholesome  or  the  reverse,  as  it  is  to  classify  the  various 
appropriate  thoughts  and  images  to  which  they  may  be 
attached.  Of  course,  in  a  thousand  instances  they  are 
actually  so  attached;  for  as  thought  is  always  seeking 
emotion,  so  is  emotion  always  seeking  thought,  and  the 
atmospheres  of  the  soul  may  be  said  to  be  constantly  pen- 
etrated by  crowds  of  appropriate  thoughts,  which  take 
their  peculiar  coloring  and  intensity  only  upon  entering 
the  magic  precincts  of  emotion.  But  if,  as  we  have  main- 
tained, music  has  the  power  of  actually  creating  and  ma- 
nipulating these  mental  atmospheres,  what  vast  capacities 
for  good  or  evil  must  music  possess !  For  what  troops  of 
pleasurable,  stimulating,  or  enervating  ideas  and  fancies  is 
good  dance-music  responsible,  by  providing  all  these  with 
the  emotional  atmospheres  which  invite  their  presence, 
and  by  intensifying  the  situation  !  The  strains  of  martial 
music  as  a  military  band  passes  by  are  capable  of  rousing 
something  like  a  spirited  and  energetic  emotion,  for  a  mo- 
ment at  least,  in  the  breast  of  the  tamest  auditor,  and  the 
Bible  itself  pays  a  tribute  to  the  emotional  effect  and  pow- 
er of  changing  the  soul's  atmosphere  possessed  by  even 
such  a  primitive  instrument  as  David's  harp — "  When  the 
evil  spirit  from  God  was  upon  Saul,  then  David  took  an 
harp,  and  played  with  his  hand.  So  Saul  was  refreshed, 
and  was  well,  and  the  evil  spirit  departed  from  him"  (1 
Sam.,  xvi.,  23).  Poor  George  III.,  in  his  fits  of  melancholy 
madness,  was  deeply  sensible  of  the  power  of  music  to  cre- 
ate atmospheres  of  peace,  and  restore  something  like  har- 
mony to  the  "  sweet  bells"  of  the  spirit  "jangled  out  of 
tune."  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  acknowledged 


EMOTION  AND  MORALS.  53 

influence  of  music  over  the  insane  might  be  far  more  ex- 
tensively used — indeed,  if  applied  judiciously  to  a  disor- 
ganized mind,  it  might  be  as  powerful  an  agent  as  galvan- 
ism in  restoring  healthy  and  pleasurable  activity  to  the 
emotional  regions.  Who  can  deny,  then,  if  such  a  mysteri- 
ous command  as  this  is  possessed  by  music  over  the  realm 
of  abstract  emotion,  that  music  itself  must  be  held  responsi- 
ble for  the  manner  in  which  it  deals  with  that  realm,  and 
the  kind  of  succession,  proportion,  and  degrees  of  the  vari- 
ous emotional  atmospheres  it  has  the  power  of  generating  ? 

I  pause  for   a   moment  to  meet  the  objection  often 
is.        brought  against  the  exercise  of  emotion  apart 

Emotion 

and  Morals,  from  action.  Every  thing,  it  may  be  said,  music 
included,  which  excites  an  emotion  not  destined  to  cul- 
minate in  action,  has  a  weakening  and  enervating  effect 
upon  character.  This  is  true  when  an  emotion  is  roused 
which  has  for  its  object  the  performance  of  a  duty.  We 
may  derive  pleasure  from  a  glowing  appeal  to  help  the 
suffering — we  may  listen  with  excitement  to  the  details 
of  the  suffering  we  are  called  upon  to  alleviate  ;  yet,  if  we 
do  no  more,  the  emotion  will  indeed  have  enervated  us. 
But  to  be  affected  by  a  drama,  a  novel,  or  poem,  which 
points  to  no  immediate  duty  of  action  in  us,  need  not  ener- 
vate— it  may  be  a  healthy  exercise  or  discipline  of  emo- 
tion ;  we  may  be  the  better  for  it,  we  may  be  the  more 
likely  to  act  rightly  when  the  opportunity  occurs  for  hav- 
ing felt  rightly  when  there  was  no  immediate  call  for  ac- 
tion. We  ought  not  to  be  afraid  of  our  emotions  because 
they  may  not  be  instantly  called  upon  to  inspire  action. 
Depend  upon  it,  a  man  is  better  for  his  formless  aspira- 
tions after  good,  and  the  more  powerful  and  disciplined 
the  emotions  become  through  constant  exercise,  the  better 
it  will  be  for  us.  It  is  better  to  feel  sometimes  without 


54  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

action,  than  to  act  often  without  feeling.  The  unpardon- 
able sin  is  to  allow  feeling  to  supersede  action  when  the 
time  for  action  as  the  fruit  of  feeling  has  arrived.  This  is 
the  barren  sin  of  Sentimentalism. 

In  considering  practically  the  Good  and  Evil  of  music 
as  it  comes  before  us  in  its  highly-developed  modern  form, 
we  shall  naturally  have  to  refer  to  the  three  classes  of 
people  most  concerned  —  the  COMPOSER,  the  EXECUTIVE 
MUSICIAN,  the  LISTENER. 

VL 

THE  COMPOSER  lives  in  a  world  apart,  into  which  only 

19  those  who  have  the  golden  key  are  admitted. 

The  composer.  The  golden  key  is  not  the  genge  of  hearing, 

but  what  is  called  an  "  Ear  for  Music."  Even  then  half 
the  treasures  of  the  composer's  world  may  be  as  dead  let- 
ters to  the  vulgar  or  untrained,  just  as  a  village  school- 
boy who  can  read  fluently  might  roam,  with  an  unappre- 
ciative  gape,  through  the  library  of  the  British  Museum. 
The  composer's  world  is  the  world  of  emotion,  full  of  deli- 
cate elations  and  depressions,  which,  like  the  hum  of  mi- 
nute insects,  hardly  arrest  the  uncultivated  ear — full  of 
melodious  thunder,  and  rolling  waters,  and  the  voice  of 
the  south  wind — without  charm  for  the  many  who  pass 
by.  Full  of  intensity,  like  the  incessant  blaze  of  Eastern 
lightning — full  of  velocity,  like  the  trailing  fire  of  the  fall- 
ing stars — full  of  variety,  like  woodlands  smitten  by  the 
breath  of  autumn,  or  the  waste  of  many  colors  changing 
and  iridescent  upon  a  sunset  sea.  The  emotions  which 
such  images  are  calculated  to  arouse  in  the  hearts  of  those 
who  are  prepared  to  entertain  them,  the  composer,  who 
has  studied  well  the  secrets  of  his  art,  can  excite  through 
the  medium  of  sound  alone;  formless  emotions  are  his 
friends.  Intimately  do  the  spirits  of  the  air,  called  into 


RISE  OF  MUSIC.  55 

existence  by  the  pulsing  vibrations  of  melody  and  har- 
mony, converse  with  him.  They  are  the  familiars  that  he 
can  send  forth  speeding  to  all  hearts  with  messages  too 
subtle  for  words  —  sometimes  sparkling  with  irresistible 
mirth,  at  others  wild  with  terror  and  despair,  or  filled  with 
the  sweet  whispers  of  imperishable  consolation.  All  this, 
and  far  more  than  any  words  can  utter,  was  to  be  done, 
and  has  been  done  for  man,  by  music ;  but  not  suddenly, 
or  at  once  and  altogether,  as  the  first  rude  attempts,  still 
extant  and  familiar  to  most  of  us  in  the  shape  of  Grego- 
rian chants,  live  to  attest. 

As  the  early  violin-makers,  by  long  lives  of  solitary  toil 
20  and  intense  thought,  slowly  discovered  the  per- 
Rise  of  Music.  fect  ijnes  an(j  exquisite  proportions  which  make 
the  violins  of  Stradiuarius  the  wonder  of  the  world;  as  the 
various  schools  of  painting  in  Italy  brought  to  light,  one 
by  one,  those  elements  of  form,  color,  and  chiaroscuro 
which  are  found  united,  with  incomparable  richness  and 
grace,  in  the  master-pieces  of  Raphael,  Tintoret,  and  Titian, 
so  did  the  great  maestros  of  the  sixteenth  century  begin 
to  arrange  the  rudiments  of  musical  sound  in  combinations, 
not  merely  correct  according  to  the  narrow  code  of  melo- 
dy and  harmony  suggested  by  a  few  leading  properties  of 
vibration  and  the  natural  divisions  of  the  scale,  but  in 
studied  and  sympathetic  relations  adapted  to  the  ever- 
changing,  complex,  and  subtle  emotions  of  the  heart. 
About  the  time  that  Italian  painting  reached  its  acme  of 
splendor,  the  dawn  of  modern  music — that  form  of  art 
which  was  destined  to  succeed  painting,  as  painting  had 
succeeded  architecture — had  already  begun.  Palestrina, 
to  whom  we  owe  modern  melody,  and  whose  harmonies 
enchanted  even  Mozart  and  Mendelssohn  when  they  first 
heard  them  in  the  Pope's  chapel  at  Rome,  was  born  in 


56  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MOAALS. 

1524,  nine  years  after  the  death  of  Raphael.  In  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  from  that  date,  the  delights  of  melo- 
dy, the  depths  and  resources  of  harmony,  had  been  ex- 
plored. The  powers  of  the  human  voice,  the  capacities  of 
stringed  instruments,  every  important  variety  of  wind  in- 
strument, the  modern  organ,  and  the  piano-forte,  had  been 
discovered.  Music  could  no  longer  be  called  a  terra  incog- 
nita. When  Mozart  died,  all  its  great  mines,  as  far  as  we 
can  see,  had  at  least  been  opened.  We  are  not  aware  that 
any  important  instrument  has  been  invented  since  his  day, 
or  that  any  new  form  of  musical  composition  has  made  its 
appearance.  Innumerable  improvements  in  the  instru- 
mental department  have  been  introduced,  and  doubtless 
the  forms  of  Symphony,  Cantata,  Opera,  and  Cabinet  mu- 
sic, bequeathed  to  us  by  the  great  masters  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  have  been  strangely  elaborated  by  Beetho- 
ven, Mendelssohn,  and  Schumann,  and  are  even  now  un- 
dergoing startling  modifications  in  the  hands  of  Wagner 
and  his  disciples.  It  is  not  for  us  to  say  in  what  direction 
the  rich  veins  of  ore  will  be  found  still  further  to  extend, 
or  what  undiscovered  gems  may  yet  lie  in  the  rivers,  or  be 
imbedded  in  the  mountain  ranges  of  the  musical  cosmoa 
But  we  may  safely  affirm  that  for  all  purposes  of  inquiry 
into  the  rationale  or  into  the  moral  properties  of  music,  we 
are  at  this  moment  as  much  in  possession  of  the  full  and 
sufficient  facts  as  we  ever  shall  be,  and  therefore  we  see  no 
reason  why  inquiries  to  which  every  other  Art  has  been 
fully  arid  satisfactorily  subjected  should  be  any  longer  de- 
ferred in  the  case  of  Music. 

The  difference  between  "tweedledum  and  tweedledee" 
21          has  always  been  a  subject  of  profound  mystery 
£  to  tne  unmusical  world ;  but  the  musical  world 
is  undoubtedly  right  in  feeling  strongly  upon 


REALISM  AND  SENTIMEXTALISM.  57 

the  subject,  though  unhappily  often  wrong  when  trying 
to  give  its  reasons.  It  is  quite  impossible  for  any  one, 
who  has  thoughtfully  and  sympathetically  studied  the  dif- 
ferent schools  of  music,  not  to  feel  that  one  style  and  con- 
ception of  the  art  is  nobler  than  another.  That  certain 
methods  of  using  musical  sound  are  affected,  or  extrava- 
gant, or  fatiguing,  or  incoherent,  while  others  are  digni- 
fied, natural,  or  really  pathetic,  arranging  and  expressing 
the  emotions  in  a  true  order,  representing  no  vamped-up 
passion,  but  passion  as  it  is,  with  its  elations,  depressions, 
intensities,  velocities,  varieties,  and  infinitely  fine  inflexions 
of  form.  Between  the  spirit  of  the  musical  Sentimentalist 
and  the  musical  Realist  there  is  eternal  war.  The  contest 
may  rage  under  different  captains.  At  one  time  it  is  the 
mighty  Gluck  who  opposes  the  ballad-mongering  Piccini ; 
at  another  it  is  the  giant  Handel  versus  the  melodramatic 
Bononcini ;  or  it  is  Mozart  against  all  France  and  Italy ; 
or  Beethoven  against  Rossini ;  or  Wagner  against  the 
world.  In  each  case  the  points  at  issue  are,  or  are  sup- 
posed by  the  belligerents  to  be,  substantially  the  same. 
.False  emotion,  or  abused  emotion,  or  frivolous  emotionjX: 
versus  true  feeling,  disciplined  feeling,  or  sublime  feeling. 
Musicians  perhaps  can  not  always  explain  how  music  is 
capable  of  the  above  radical  distinctions — granted.  I  am 
concerned  just  now  with  this  remarkable  fact — the  distinc- 
tion exists  in  their  minds.  They  arrange  the  German,  the 
Italian,  French,  and  the  Franco-German  schools  in  a  cer- 
tain order  of  musical  merit  and  importance;  there  is  a  fair 
general  agreement  about  what  this  order  should  be ;  and, 
perhaps  without  knowing  why,  an  enlightened  musician 
would  no  more  compare  Rossini  to  Beethoven,  or  Gounod 
to  Mozart,  than  a  literary  critic  would  speak  of  Thomas 
Moore  in  the  same  breath  with  Shakspeare,  or  place  Bouci- 
cault  by  the  side  of  Schiller 


58  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

The  reason  of  the  superiority  of  the  modern  German 
22^  school  from   Gluck   to   Schumann    over   the 

iM?and' French  French  and  Italian  we  believe  to  be  a  real 
and  substantial  one,  although,  owing  to  the 
extraordinary  nature  of  the  connection  between  sound  and 
emotion,  it  is  far  more  easy  to  feel  than  to  explain  the  dis- 
tinction between  a  noble  and  an  ignoble  school  of  music. 
This  difference,  however,  we  believe  consists  entirely  in 
the  view  taken  of  the  emotions,  and  the  order  and  spirit 
in  which  they  are  evoked  and  manipulated  by  the  compo- 
ser's magical  art.  Toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  in  Italy,  music  began  to  feel  its  great  powers  as 
an  emotional  medium.  The  great  musical  works  were  then 
nearly  all  of  a  sacred  character,  and  devoted  to  the  service 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  churches.  The  art  was  still  firmly 
held  in  the  trammels  of  strict  fugue  and  severe  counter- 
point ;  the  solemn  and  startling  process  of  musical  discov- 
ery was  nevertheless  in  rapid  progress.  The  composers 
seemed  a  little  overawed  by  the  novel  effects  they  were 
daily  producing,  and  the  still  powerful  devotion  to  the 
Catholic  religion  hallowed  their  emotions,  and  gave  to 
their  Masses  a  severity  and  purity  quite  unknown  to  the 
Italian  music  of  the  nineteenth  century.  We  can  not  now 
stop  to  inquire  whether  it  was  the  rapid  decline  of  the  Pa- 
pal Power,  and  consequently  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith, 
which  caused  the  degradation  of  Italian  music,  or  whether, 
when  sound  came  to  be  understood  as  a  most  subtle  and 
ravishing  minister  to  pleasure,  the  temptation  to  use  it 
simply  as  the  slave  of  the  senses  proved  too  great  for  a  po- 
litically-degraded people,  whose  religion  had  become  half 
an  indolent  superstition  and  half  a  still  more  indolent  skep- 
ticism ;  certain  it  is  that  about  the  time  of  Giambattista 
Jesi  (Pergolesi),  who  died  in  1 736,  the  high  culture  of  mu- 
sic passed  from  Italy  to  Germany,  which  latter  country 


GERMAN,  ITALIAN,  AND  FRENCH  SCHOOLS.  59 

was  destined  presently  to  see  the  rise  and  astonishing 
progress  of  Symphony  and  modern  Oratorio,  while  Italy 
devoted  itself  henceforth  to  that  brilliant  bathos  of  art 
known  as  the  "  Italian  Opera." 

We  can  not  deny  to  Italy  the  gift  of  sweet  and  enchant- 
ing melody.  Rossini  has  also  shown  himself  a  master  of 
the  very  limited  effects  of  harmony  which  it  suited  his 
purpose  to  cultivate.  Then  why  is  not  Rossini  as  good  as 
Beethoven  ?  Absurd  as  the  question  sounds  to  a  musician, 
it  is  not  an  unreasonable  one  when  coming  from  the  gen- 
eral public,  and  the  only  answer  we  can  find  is  this.  Not 
to  mention  the  enormous  resources  in  the  study  and  culti- 
vation of  harmony  which  the  Italians,  from  want  of  incli- 
nation or  ability,  neglect,  the  German  music  is  higher  than 
the  Italian,  because  it  is  a  truer  expression,  and  a  more 
disciplined  expression,  of  the  emotions.  To  follow  a  move- 
ment of  Beethoven  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  bracing  exercise 
of  the  intellect.  The  emotions  evoked,  while  assuming  a 
double  degree  of  importance  by  association  with  the  ana- 
lytic faculty,  do  not  become  enervated,  because  in  the  mas- 
terful grip  of  the  great  composer  we  are  conducted  through 
a  cycle  of  naturally  progressive  feeling,  which  always  ends 
by  leaving  the  mind  recreated,  balanced,  and  ennobled  by 
the  exercise.  In  Beethoven  all  is  restrained,  nothing  mor- 
bid which  is  not  almost  instantly  corrected,  nothing  luxu- 
rious which  is  not  finally  raised  into  the  clear  atmosphere 
of  wholesome  and  brisk  activity,  or  some  corrective  mood 
of  peaceful  self-mastery,  or  even  playfulness.  And  the 
emotions  thus  roused  are  not  the  vamped-up  feelings  of  a 
jaded  appetite,  or  the  false,  inconsequent  spasms  of  the 
sentimentalist.  They  are  such  as  we  have  experienced  in 
high  moods  or  passionately  sad  ones,  or  in  the  night,  in 
summer-time,  or  by  the  sea ;  at  all  events,  they  are  unfold- 
ed before  us,  not  with  the  want  of  perspective,  or  violent 


tiO  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALK. 

frenzy  of  a  bad  dream,  but  with  true  gradations  in  natura> 
succession,  and  tempered  with  all  the  middle  tints  that  go 
to  make  up  the  truth  of  life.  Hence  the  different  nature 
of  the  emotional  exercise  gone  through  in  listening  to  typ- 
ical German  and  typical  Italian  music.  The  Italian  makes 
us  sentimentalize,  the  German  makes  us  feel.  The  senti- 
ment of  the  one  gives  the  emotional  conception  of  artifi 
cial  suffering  or  joy,  the  natural  feeling  of  the  other  gives 
us  the  emotional  conception  which  belongs  to  real  suffer- 
ing or  joy.  The  one  is  stagey — smells  of  the  oil  and  the 
rouge-pot  —  the  other  is  real,  earnest,  natural,  and  repro- 
duces with  irresistible  force  the  deepest  emotional  expe- 
riences of  our  lives.  It  is  not  good  to  be  constantly  dis- 
solved in  a  state  of  love-melancholy,  full  of  the  languor  of 
passion  without  its  real  spirit  —  but  that  is  what  Italian 
music  aims  at.  Again,  the  violent  crises  of  emotion  should 
come  in  their  right  places  —  like  spots  of  primary  color 
with  wastes  of  gray  between  them.  There  are  no  middle 
tints  in  Italian  music ;  the  listeners  are  subjected  to  shock 
after  shock  of  emotion — half  a  dozen  smashing  surprises, 
and  twenty  or  thirty  spasms  and  languors  in  each  scene, 
until  at  last  we  become  like  children  who  thrust  their 
hands  again  and  again  into  water  charged  with  electric- 
ityjust  on  purpose  to  feel  the  thrill  and  the  relapse.  But 
that  is  not  healthy  emotion— it  does  not  recreate  the  feel- 
ings ;  it  kindles  artificial  feelings,  and  makes  reality  taste- 
less. 

Now,  whenever  feeling  is  not  disciplined,  it  becomes 
weak,  diseased,  and  unnatural.  It  is  because  German  mu- 
sic takes  emotion  fairly  in  hand,  disciplines  it,  expresses  its 
depressions  in  order  to  remove  them,  renders  with  terrible 
accuracy  even  its  insanity  and  incoherence  in  order  to  give 
relief  through  such  expression,  and  restores  calm,  flinches 
not  from  the  tender  and  the  passionate,  stoops  to  pity,  and 


GERMAN,  ITALIAN,  AND  FRENCH  SCHOOLS.  gi 

becomes  a  very  angel  in  sorrow ;  it  is  because  German 
music  has  probed  the  humanities  and  sounded  the  depths 
of  our  nature — taught  us  how  to  bring  the  emotional  re- 
gion not  only  into  the  highest  activity,  but  also  under  the 
highest  control — that  we  place  German  music  in  the  first 
rank,  and  allow  no  names  to  stand  before  Gluck,  Bach, 
Handel,  Haydn,  Mozart,  Beethoven,  Schubert,  Spohr,  Men- 
delssohn, and  Schumann. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  in  great  detail  the  es- 
sentially voluptuous  character  of  Italian  music,  the  essen- 
tially frivolous  and  sentimental  character  of  French  music, 
and  the  essentially  moral,  many-sided,  and  philosophical 
character  of  German  music ;  but  I  hasten  to  pass  on  to  the 
Executive  Musician,  merely  qualifying  the  above  remarks 
with  this  general  caution :  Let  not  the  reader  suppose  that 
in  the  schools  of  music  that  take  rank  after  the  German 
School,  there  is  nothing  worthy  and  beautiful  to  be  found. 
Rossini,  and  even  Verdi,  are  manifestly  full  of  extraordi- 
nary merit ;  the  veteran  Auber  was  a  real  musical  giant ; 
and  M.  Gounod  is  surely  a  very  remarkable  genius.  Nor 
must  we  forget  that  before  the  rise  of  German  music  there 
were  in  England  such  composers  as  Tallis,  Gibbons,  and 
Purcell.  What  I  have  said  above  on  the  three  national 
Schools  of  European  music  applies  to  the  general  tenden- 
cies of  each  as  a  School,  and  is  not  intended  to  condemn  in 
the  productions  of  individual  composers  much  that  is,  and 
that  deserves  to  be,  the  admiration  of  the  civilized  world. 

vn. 

WHAT  possible  moral  influence  can  an  EXECUTIVE  Mu- 
ss.         SICIAN  either  receive  or  distribute  through  his 
The  Executive 

Musician.  Art  ?  First  let  us  inquire  what  he  is  with  ref- 
erence to  his  Art.  The  Player,  like  the  Composer,  is  pass- 
iva  The  one  is  possessed  by  the  inspirations  of  his  own 


62  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

genius,  the  other  by  the  inspirations  of  a  genius  not  his 
own.  The  Player,  like  the  Composer,  is  active.  The  one 
exerts  himself  to  put  his  conceptions  into  a  communicable 
form ;  the  other  charges  himself  with  the  office  of  convey- 
ing them,  through  that  form,  to  the  world.  The  compos- 
ing and  executive  faculties  are  quite  distinct.  A  great 
composer  is  often  an  ineffective  player,  while  many  a  lead- 
ing player,  with  all  the  requisite  knowledge  and  study,  is  in- 
capable of  composing  good  music.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
Drama.  The  great  actors  are  seldom  great  dramatists; 
neither  Garrick  nor  any  of  the  Keans  or  Kembles  have 
been  famous  authors.  The  great  dramatic  authors,  in  their 
turn,  have  usually  been  but  mediocre  before  the  foot-lights. 
Shakspeare  himself,  if  we  may  trust  tradition,  was  not  more 
than  respectable  in  his  great  parts.  The  originative  fac- 
ulty is  usually  considered  more  heaven-born,  as  it  is  cer- 
tainly far  more  rare  than  the  executive  gift.  Few  women 
have  hitherto  possessed  the  first,  numbers  have  attained 
the  highest  rank  in  the  second.  We  have  had  peerless 
actresses,  but  no  female  dramatists  of  mark.  Music  has  an 
unlimited  number  of  notable  sirens  and  lady  instrumental- 
ists, but  not  one  original  female  composer  has  yet  made  her 
appearance.  The  ladies  of  the  period,  even  in  England,  no 
doubt  write  drawing-room  ballads,  and  their  friends  sing 
them ;  but  the  typical  English  ballad — we  do  not  speak  of 
really  fine  old  tunes,  or  the  good  work  of  Mr.  Sullivan,  and 
a  few  other  true  English  musicians — can  hardly  be  called 
a  musical  composition,  even  when  warbled  in  bad  English 
by  a  Patti.  But,  however  high  we  may  place  the  com- 
poser (and  if  we  regard  him  as  the  recreator  and  disciplina- 
rian of  the  emotions  we  shall  place  him  very  high),  the 
person  who  stands  between  the  composer  and  the  audience 
has  a  vast  and  direct  power  of  which  we  are  bound  to  give 
some  account. 


THE  EXECUTIVE  MUSICIAN.  63 

And  here  I  notice  the  double  function  of  music  as  an  ex- 
ecutive art ;  not  only  is  it  a  means  of  revealing  a  certain 
order  or  succession  of  emotion  in  the  composer's  mind,  but 
it  provides  each  player  with  a  powerful  medium  of  self- 
revelation.  There  are  many  different  ways  of  playing  the 
same  piece  of  music ;  the  conscientious  player  will  no  doubt 
begin  by  carefully  studying  the  movement,  noting  any  />'« 
or  /"'«,  etc.,  which  the  composer  may  have  vouchsafed  to 
give  us  as  hints  of  his  meaning ;  and  having  tried  to  mas- 
ter the  emotional  unity  of  the  piece,  he  will  then — bearing 
a  few  prominent  p>s  andfs  in  his  mind — trust  to  a  certain 
infection  of  impulse  to  carry  him  through  its  execution. 
But  as  the  music  develops  beneath  his  fingers,  what  oppor- 
tunities there  are  for  the  expression  of  his  own  individuali- 
ty ;  what  little  refinements,  what  subtle  points,  what  im- 
perceptible artifices  for  riveting  choice  turns  in  the  compo- 
sition upon  the  ear  of  the  listener !  The  great  composers 
seem  to  cast  off  all  egotism  when  they  lay  down  their 
pens.  They  are  the  generous  and  sympathetic  friends  of 
those  who  interpret  them ;  they  will  give  them  all  reason- 
able license.  "  The  music,"  each  master  seems  to  say, "  is 
yours  and  mine ;  if  you  would  discover  and  share  my  im- 
pulse through  it,  I  would  also  discover  and  share  yours  in 
it.  I  will  bring  the  gem  and  you  shall  bring  the  light,  and 
together  we  will  set  before  the  world  the  raptures  and 
mysteries  of  sound,  wrought  through  the  golden  art  of 
music  into  immortal  Tone  Poems." 

But,  although  music  is  given  to  the  player  as  a  sort  of 
private  property,  the  player  must  no  doubt  respect  the 
general  outline  and  balance  of  emotion  discoverable  upon 
a  careful  study  of  his  sonata  or  solo ;  but  he  was  intended 
to  interpret  its  detail  for  himself,  to  express  through  the 
unalterable  elations  and  depressions  involved  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  music  the  various  and  subtle  degrees  of  inten- 


64  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AXD  MORALS. 

sity  of  which  he  may  be  at  the  time  capable.  He  may 
give  inflexions  of  his  own,  delicate  treatments  in  different 
measures  of  velocity,  often  unperceived  by  the  many,  but 
none  the  less  of  infinite  importance  and  meaning  to  the  in- 
telligent hearer. 

In  different  hands,  the  same  piece  will  sound  quite  dif- 
ferently. Then  music  has  no  fixed  significance  of  its  own, 
and  is  merely  the  plaything  of  caprice,  and  the  vague  and 
doubtful  echo  of  emotion?  Not  so.  Every  piece  of  music 
Worthy  of  the  name  has  a  fixed  progression  and  complete- 
ness of  emotion,  but  within  its  outlines  it  also  possesses  an 
elastic  quality  and  a  power  of  cxpressional  variety  which 
helps  it  to  combine  and  cling  about  each  new  executant  as 
though  made  for  him  alone.  The  player  thus  discovers  in 
his  music  not  only  the  emotional  scheme  and  conception 
of  the  composer,  but  also  congenial  elements,  which  he  ap- 
propriates after  his  own  fashion,  and  which  constitute  that 
striking  bond  of  momentary  sympathy  which  exists  so 
strangely  between  fine  singers  or  soloists  and  their  audi- 
ences. But  may  I  here  observe,  that  substantially  there 
is  far  less  difference  than  is  generally  supposed  between 
the  "readings"  of  eminent  players.  Between  M.  Charles 
Halle's  and  Madame  Schumann's  readings  of  the  Moonlight 
Sonata,  for  instance  (and  we  select  these  eminent  artists  as 
the  opposite  poles  of  the  musical  temperament),  there  is  the 
same  kind  of  difference  as  we  might  notice  between  Miss 
Glyn's  and  Mrs.Kemble's  readings  of  a  scene  in  Shakspeare, 
or  between  Mr.  Phelps's  and  M.  Fechter's  impersonations 
of  Hamlet.  Difference  of  minute  inflexions  and  variety  of 
inflexions — difference  of  degrees  in  the  intensity  or  veloci- 
ty of  the  emotion  traversed;  but  substantially  each  would 
be  found  to  preserve  the  same  general  appreciation  of  the 
way  in  which  the  different  sections  are  intended  to  march. 
Here  and  there  a  dispute  would  arise ;  but,  in  fact,  the  good 


THE  EXECUTIVE  MUSICIAN.  65 

reader  or  actor  does  exactly  what  the  performer  ought  to 
do.  In  the  first  place,  he  carefully  studies  the  meaning  of 
his  author;  and,  in  the  second,  he  allows  his  own  individ- 
uality free  play,  in  flowing  period  and  subtle  rendering 
within  the  elastic  limits  always  characteristic  of  a  highly 
emotional  work  of  art.  The  best  executive  musician,  then, 
is  he  who  has  thoroughly  mastered  his  composer's  thought, 
and  who,  in  expressing  that  thought  to  others,  allows  his 
own  individuality  to  pierce  freely,  as  every  man  must  do 
who  has  not  only  learned  by  rote,  but  really  assimilated 
what  he  comes  forward  to  reproduce.  To  the  above  defi- 
nition of  what  an  executant  should  be,  every  other  descrip- 
tion of  what  executants  are  can  be  easily  referred.  Exec- 
utants are  of  six  kinds : 

1.  Those  who  study  the  composer,  and  also  express  them- 
selves. 

2.  Those  who  express  themselves  without  regard  to  the 
composer. 

3.  Those  who  express  the  composer  without  regard  to 
themselves. 

4.  Those  who  caricature  both. 

5.  Those  who  express  other  people's  views  of  the  com- 
position. 

6.  The  dullards,  who  express  nothing. 

It  would  be  very  tempting  to  dilate  upon  these  six  class- 
es. We  can  only  at  present  afford  to  enumerate  them,  and 
pass  on. 

The  life  of  a  successful  singer  or  an  illustrious  instru- 
2^      mentalist  is  full  of  peril  —  peril  to  virtue,  peril  to 
oisto.  art^  perjj  to  society  j  an(j  this  is  not  owing  at  all  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  executive  gift  in  itself,  but  entirely 
owing  to  the  conditions  imposed  upon  the  artist  from  with- 
out.    There  need  be  nothing  in  t^».  life-work  of  a  great 
5 


66  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

Prima-donna  to  demoralize  any  more  than  in  the  life-work 
of  any  other  gifted  and  industrious  woman.  There  are 
great  operas  which  are  calculated  to  ennoble  while  they 
delight ;  there  are  songs  which  stir  within  us  the  finest 
impulses ;  there  are  characters  to  be  impersonated  on  the 
operatic  stage  which  not  only  do  not  shock  decency,  but 
tend  to  promote  the  highest  and  most  generous  sentiment. 
There  are  many  others  of  an  un-moral  description,  perfect- 
ly harmless,  and  calculated  to  produce  the  utmost  enjoy- 
ment. Given  a  right  selection  of  songs — given  a  course 
of  operas  dealing,  if  you  will,  with  a  certain  amount  of 
crime  and  a  fair  instalment  of  horrors,  but  so  constructed 
as  to  be  effective  in  result  without  being  immoral  in  tend- 
ency (and  the  greatest  works  of  Shakspeare  and  Beetho- 
ven satisfy  both  these  conditions) ;  given  to  the  singer 
good  remuneration,  and,  above  all,  sufficient  repose  ;  given 
some  choice  of  congenial  subjects ;  given  a  sphere  of  whole- 
some activity,  and,  lastly,  given  a  recognized  and  an  hon- 
orable social  position,  and  all  special  peril  to  personal  vir- 
tue immediately  ceases.  It  is  nonsense  to  say  that  a  cer- 
tain physical  exhaustion  which  must  accompany  any  high- 
ly-sustained effort  of  mind  or  body  is  especially  deleteri- 
ous in  the  case  of  a  musician.  Exertion  need  not  produce 
disease.  People  were  intended  to  exert  themselves.  Does 
the  Parliamentary  orator  speak  for  four  hours  without  fa- 
tigue ?  Does  the  medical  man  see  one  hundred  patients 
in  the  course  of  the  morning  without  severe  mental  ten- 
sion ?  Does  a  judge  deliver  his  charges  without  a  similar 
effort  ?  Does  the  author  compose  without  highly-wrought 
and  sustained  attention,  practiced  advisedly,  and  without 
necessary  injury  to  his  brain,  or  stomach,  or  moral  equilib- 
rium ?  Let  us  settle  it  in  our  minds,  there  is  nothing  de- 
moralizing in  deliberately,  and  for  a  definite  art  purpose, 
putting  one's  self  or  others  through  the  experience  of  a 


SOLOISTS.  67 

highly-strung  series  of  emotions.  It  is  even  a  good  and 
healthy  function  of  art  to  raise  our  feelings  at  times  to 
their  highest  pitch  of  intensity.  It  is  part  of  a  right  sys- 
tem of  discipline,  calculated  to  bring  the  emotions  into 
high  condition  and  healthy  activity,  and  to  keep  them  in  a 
good  state  of  repair.  The  body  is  intended  and  fitted  to 
bear  at  times  an  extreme  tension  of  its  muscles.  The  pro- 
fessional athlete  knows  this,  and  when  he  is  rubbed  down 
and  rolled  up  in  his  hot  blanket  after  violent  exercise,  he 
is  not  alarmed  at  feeling  himself  going  off  into  a  profound 
sleep  through  sheer  exhaustion,  for  he  knows  that  such 
systematic  exertion  and  exhaustion  must  be  undergone  in 
order  to  raise  his  physique  to  its  highest  state  of  health 
and  power.  Well,  the  laws  which  regulate  the  life  and 
health  of  the  emotions  are  exactly  similar,  and  these  laws 
prescribe  steady  exercise,  rest,  recreation,  and  sometimes 
extreme  tension.  In  itself,  we  repeat,  the  habitual  exer- 
cise and  discipline  of  the  emotions,  as,  for  example,  in  mu- 
sic or  acting,  is  not  the  ruin  of,  but  the  very  condition  of, 
moral  health.  It  is  the  kind  of  strain  imposed  upon  our 
musical  artists,  not  by  their  art,  but  by  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  by  the  thoughtless,  extravagant,  indolent, 
and  often  immoral  demands  of  a  public  that  has  little  mu- 
sical education,  and  that  little  bad,  which  hurries  nine 
tenths  of  all  our  gifted  executants  to  a  premature  grave. 
Tae  cantatrice  should  be  allowed  to  unfold  her  aspirations 
in  noble  music  ;  but  she  has  the  misfortune  to  have  half  an 
octave  more  than  other  singers,  and  so  bad  and  flimsy 
songs  must  be  chosen,  cr  noble  songs  must  be  spoiled,  for 
the  sake  of  an  upper  C,  E,  or  G.  The  public  go  mad,  not 
about  the  superb  trio  in  William  Tell  (for  example),  but 
for  the  one  bar  in  which  the  tenor  has  to  come  out  with  a 
high  chest-note.  Can  any  thing  be  more  sadly  indicative 
of  the  low  musical  feeling  of  the  British  public  than  the 


68  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

way  in  which  Mademoiselle  Carlotta  Patti  was  run  after 
for  her  head-notes,  and  Herr  Wachtel  for  his  chest-notes  ? 
These  excessive  calisthenic  and  gymnastic  explosions  are 
the  degradation  of  taste  and  the  ruin  of  many  an  incom- 
parable voice.  Again :  has  a  musician  no  private  taste, 
no  feeling,  no  love  for  good  music  ?  Possibly  he  may 
have ;  but  what  is  he  to  do  ?  Composers  pay  him  to  sing 
their  trash ;  publishers  bribe  even  good  composers  to  write 
the  kind  of  stuff  the  public  have  been  fooled  into  applaud- 
ing. That  is  one,  and  not  the  only,  chronic  complaint 
from  which  Music  in  England  is  suffering  at  present. 

There  are  hundreds  of  magnificent  songs  of  Schubert,  of 
Beethoven,  and  Schumann ;  but  these  composers,  who  had 
but  few  bank-notes  to  spare  during  their  lifetime,  have  un- 
fortunately left  no  money  to  pay  singers  after  their  death. 
The  public  do  not  hear  numbers  of  the  best  songs  that  ex- 
ist. One  or  two  perhaps  emerge.  "Adelaide"  forever! 
and  what  other  song  by  Beethoven  does  a  certain  eminent 
Tenor  habitually  sing  ?  And  what  songs  does  he  general- 
ly sing,  and  why  ?  There  are  a  good  many  first-rate  En- 
glish ballads.  Thanks  to  the  enterprise  of  a  few  bold  and 
conscientious  singers,  we  occasionally  hear  some  of  them. 
But  are  the  English  ballads  most  commonly  sung  at  con- 
certs selected  for  their  merit  ?  Why  are  they  sung  ?  The 
truth  had  better  be  told ;  they  are  sung  because  they  are 
paid  for,  and  they  are  clapped  and  puffed  by  people  who 
ought  to  know  better ;  and  who  do  know  better,  but  who 
are  paid  to  pocket  their  conscience,  and  applaud  what  they 
know  to  be  meaningless  trash.  How  are  singers  to  fulfill 
the  first  simple  duty  they  owe  to  their  art,  and  sing  good 
music,  when  there  is  a  conspiracy  to  make  them  stoop  to 
the  humiliation  of  their  noble  gifts,  or  starve  ?  Once  more : 
there  is  the  peril  of  overwrought  powers.  When  the  mind, 
through  excessive  artistic  excitement, "  like  a  jarred  pend- 


SOLOISTS.  69 

ulurn,  retains  only  its  motion,  not  its  power,"  then  absolute 
repose  is  wanted.  All  may  have  been  within  the  bounds 
of  healthful  though  intense  excitation ;  it  is  not  that  we 
complain  of— not  the  excitement  of  singing  and  playing, 
but  the  want  of  rest  which  follows  it.  After  (let  us  say) 
an  opera  of  M.  Wagner,  where  the  screeching  has  been  in- 
tense, and  the  crises  almost  constant  for  some  hours,  the 
Prima-donna  must  have  rest;  no  stormy  rehearsal  next 
morning,  no  fatiguing  opera  the  next  night.  One  or  two 
great  sustained  efforts  during  the  week  are  sufficient.  But 
let  any  one  glance  at  the  programme  which  a  favorite 
singer  is  expected  to  carry  out  day  and  night,  at  opera 
and  concert,  during  the  season.  No  flesh  and  blood  can 
stand  such  an  ordeal.  Chronic  exhaustion  begins  to  set 
in ;  and  exhaustion  is  not  met  by  rest,  but  by  stimulants 
— it  must  be  so ;  and  then  more  exhaustion  is  met  by  more 
stimulants,  and  what  becomes  of  healthy  emotional  activ- 
ity and  emotional  discipline?  Mind  and  body  are  un- 
hinged. The  artist's  health  suffers,  the  artist's  voice  suf- 
fers, and  probably  becomes  extinct  in  a  few  years.  Hence 
we  can  not  blame  popular  singers  for  asking  enormous 
sums  so  long  as  they  have  a  note  left  in  their  voices.  It 
is  the  public  that  makes  them  abuse  their  priceless  gifts 
for  gold.  It  is  the  public  who  are  content  to  demand  the 
sacrifice  of  fresh,  girlish  constitutions,  and  the  shattering 
of  the  young,  manly  frames,  and  the  general  wreck  of 
mind,  and  sometimes  of  morals,  through  overfatigue  and 
overexcitement,  and  unhealthy  conditions  of  activity. 

But,  be  it  observed,  the  perils  above  alluded  to,  and  oth- 
ers which  can  not  here  be  discussed  in  detail,  are  not  in- 
separable from  the  vocation  of  a  public  singer  or  solo  in- 
strumentalist. The  vocation  is  simply  honorable ;  it  might 
and  ought  to  be  always  noble  in  its  use  and  exercise.  How 
many  esteemed  and  high-minded  musicians  are  there  who 


70  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

resist  the  perils  which  I  have  mentioned?  Thank  God 
there  are  many,  and  we  trust  every  year  there  will  be 
more  and  more  as  Music  in  England  becomes  more  and 
more  appreciated.  Let  music  be  recognized  here  as  in 
Germany,  as  a  thing  of  Reason  and  a  thing  of  Morals  as 
well  as  a  thing  of  Beauty  and  Emotion,  and  the  public  will 
cease  to  look  upon  musicians  as  mere  purveyors  of  Pleas- 
ure. We  should  not  encourage  singers  to  wear  themselves 
out ;  should  not  clamor  for  incessant  encores,  which  utter- 
ly ruin  the  balance  of  a  sustained  work  of  art ;  and  we 
should  remember  that  the  gifted  persons  who  delight  us 
are  made  of  flesh  and  blood  like  ourselves ;  that  they  have 
human  hearts,  and  passions,  and  trials,  and  are  often  ex- 
posed, when  very  young  and  at  a  great  disadvantage,  to 
temptations  not  easily  resisted  even  under  favorable  cir- 
cumstances. And  those  who  love  music  should  make  al- 
lowance for  those  who  devote  themselves  to  music,  and 
not  tempt  them  to  make  money  by  the  degradation  of  art 
to  the  ruin  of  their  own  moral  sense  and  the  destruction 
of  the  public  taste. 

I  honor  the  musical  profession ;  but  I  declare  that  musi- 
cal taste  in  England  is  degraded  and  kept  low  by  jealousy 
and  time-serving,  and  that  musical  criticism  is  so  gagged, 
and  prejudiced,  and  corrupt,  that  those  whose  business  it 
is  to  see  that  right  principles  prevail  seem  too  often  led  by 
their  interest  rather  than  their  duty.  When  it  comes  to 
judging  a  new  composer,  the  truth  is  not  told,  or  only  half 
told ;  when  a  new  player  is  allowed  to  appear,  his  success 
depends,  not  upon  his  merits,  but  upon  his  friends ;  and 
while  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  entirely  to  quell  first-class 
merit,  second-class  merit  is  constantly  ignored,  and  many 
sound  English  musicians  are  often  compelled  to  stand  aside 
and  see  their  places  taken  by  young  quacks  or  foreigners 
inferior  to  themselves.  No  one  wishes  to  deny  the  su- 


ORCHESTRAL  PL  A  TERS.  7  \ 

preme  merit  of  artists  like  M,  Joachim  or  Madame  Schu- 
mann, and  none  but  the  interested  or  the  envious  can 
grudge  them  their  distinguished  popularity;  but  in  En- 
gland, when  a  foreigner  and  an  English  artist  are  of  equal 
merit,  the  English  artist  ought  to  receive  at  least  an  equal 
share  of  support  from  the  public  and  the  press.  But  he 
never  does ;  and  why  ?  because  the  employers  of  musical 
talent  in  this  country  pander  to  the  appetite  for  every 
thing  that  is  foreign ;  because  they  keep  down  the  devel- 
opment of  English  talent  in  order  to  gain  an  easy  reputa- 
tion in  accordance  with  established  prejudices  by  constant- 
ly bringing  over  players  and  singers  from  abroad  whose 
chief  merits  seem  to  consist  in  long  hair  and  a  very  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  English  language.  It  is  dif- 
ficult for  a  musician,  especially  an  English  musician,  in  En- 
gland to  be  at  once  true  to  his  own  interests  and  to  the  in- 
terests of  his  art ;  it  is  difficult  for  him  to  be  true  to  his 
conscience  in  the  exercise  of  his  profession;  but  he  may 
receive  some  small  comfort  from  the  reflection  that  this 
last  difficulty,  at  least,  is  one  which  he  shares  with  every 
man  in  every  profession,  and  that,  at  all  events,  it  is  not  a 
difficulty  inherent  in  his  art,  neither  is  it  altogether  insur- 
mountable. 

I  am  not  writing  a  dissertation  upon  "Music  in  En- 
26.       gland,"  and  although  I  have  allowed  myself  in 

Orchestral   °  J . 

Players,  this  place  to  take  a  sidelong  glance  at  that  impor- 
tant subject,  I  am  not  bound  here  to  discuss  English  mu- 
sicians in  particular,  whether  composers  or  players.  Much 
might  be  said  about  musical  taste  in  the  provinces ;  our 
system  of  piano-forte  instruction,  which  is,  in  fact,  that 
branch  of  the  musical  profession  to  which  a  large  majority 
of  our  musicians  owe  their  incomes ;  our  organist,  and  our 
orchestral  players,  and  choral  singers.  To  follow  out  such 


f2  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

a  programme  in  detail  would  lead  me  beyond  my  present 
limits.  I  am  dealing  simply  with  the  general  moral  tend- 
encies of  executive  art ;  and  as  that  divides  itself  natural- 
ly into  solo  playing  and  cabinet  playing,  such  as  the  play- 
ing of  quartet  music,  and  orchestral  playing,  or  the  per- 
formance of  full  instrumental  scores,  a  few  words  upon  the 
Morals  of  the  Orchestra  may  not  be  out  of  place.  As  I 
shall  elsewhere  speak  of  cabinet  music,  and  as  from  the 
quasi-solo  position  of  cabinet  players  a  good  deal  which 
has  been  said  about  solo  players  applies  to  them,  I  shall 
not  here  dwell  upon  them,  but  pass  at  once  to  the  Orches- 
tral Player. 

The  orchestral  player,  if  he  knows  his  business,  will  deny 
himself  the  luxury  of  expressing  too  much  of  himself,  yet 
is  he  not  therefore  a  machine.  Through  the  medium  of  the 
conductor,  whose  inspiration  trickles  to  him  by  a  kind  of 
magnetism  from  that  electric  wand,  he,  too,  realizes  the 
music  in  its  double  capacity  of  expressing  the  composer's 
thought  and  the  conductor's  private  reading  or  expression 
of  that  thought.  But  the  Conductor  is  now  in  the  place 
of  the  Soloist :  his  instrument  is  the  orchestra,  but  that  in- 
strument is  not  a  machine.  You  may  imagine,  if  you 
please,  a  number  of  instruments  worked  by  machinery ; 
they  may  play  a  movement  accurately  with  all  its  jo's  and 
fs,  but  that  will  not  be  an  orchestral  rendering  of  the 
work.  It  will  be  like  the  grinding  of  a  barrel-organ,  and 
that  is  all — no  life,  no  emotion,  no  mind.  Catgut,  wooden 
tubes,  hammering  of  calf-skins,  and  fatal  explosion  of  bra- 
zen serpents,  all  this  you  shall  accomplish  with  cunning 
mechanism,  more  than  this  you  shall  not.  Therefore  the 
mind,  and  the  heart,  and  the  skill  of  a  man  shall  be  re- 
quired in  every  member  of  an  orchestra.  To  the  eye  of  an 
uninitiated  spectator,  that  uniform  drawing  up  and  down 
of  bows  all  in  the  same  direction  and  all  at  once — that  si- 


ORCHESTRAL  PLA  TERS.  73 

multaneous  blare  of  horns,  trumpets,  and  flute-notes  sound- 
ed instantly  at  the  call  of  the  magic  wand,  may  seem  like 
human  mechanism,  but  it  is  not — it  is  Sympathy.  The  in- 
dividuality of  each  player  may  indeed  be  merged  in  a  larger 
and  more  comprehensive  unity  of  thought  and  feeling,  but 
it  is  a  unity  with  which  he  is  in  electric  accord,  and  to 
which  he  brings  spontaneously  the  faculties  of  personal  ap- 
preciation and  individual  skill. 

Let  no  one  say  that  orchestral  work  is  beneath  the  dig- 
nity of  a  good  musical  artist.  The  very  delays  and  vexa- 
tions of  rehearsal  often  unfold  new  turns  and  critical  points 
in  a  great  work  which  might  otherwise  pass  unnoticed. 
The  position  and  use  of  the  other  instruments  is  better 
realized  by  one  who  is  playing  in  the  orchestra  than  by  any 
one  else.  The  fact  of  the  drums  being  close  behind  you 
will  sometimes  rivet  your  attention,  unpleasantly,  perhaps, 
upon  the  way  in  which  but  two  notes  are  made  to  pro- 
duce the  illusive  but  beautiful  effect  of  several  repeating 
the  leading  subject,  as  in  the  opening  movement  of  Men- 
delssohn's Lobgesang.  The  tenor  close  beside  you  forces 
a  phrase  upon  your  ear,  the  ghost  of  which,  or  a  fragment 
of  which,  may  be  just  suggested  again  by  a  distant  flute  a 
line  or  two  farther  on.  You  can  not  miss  the  author's  in- 
tention. Of  course  it  is  not  impossible,  but  it  is  not  easy 
for  any  one  who  has  not  played  a  violin  or  some  other 
prominent  instrument  in  such  words  as  Beethoven's  C 
minor,  or  Pastoral  Symphony,  and  played  it  often,  to  real- 
ize the  reasons  why  certain  passages  are  given  to  the  ten- 
ors rather  than  to  the  violoncellos;  why  some  notes  are 
re-enforced  by  the  double-bass  while  some  are  left  to  the 
violoncellos;  why  the  rhythmic  beat  of  the  drum  is  broken 
here  or  completed  there.  A  great  deal,  no  doubt,  can  be 
done  by  reading  a  full  score  without  an  orchestra.  Some 
kind,  and  a  very  good  kind,  of  appreciation  may  be  formed 


74  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

of  an  orchestral  work  from  a  piano-forte  score,  especially 
if  it  be  arranged  for  four  hands.  For  perfect  enjoyment 
again,  let  a  person  study  his  score  at  home,  and  then,  tak- 
ing his  seat  in  a  favorable  position,  not  too  near  the  or- 
chestra, with  his  score  marked  for  reference  at  certain 
points  rather  than  for  steady  perusal,  let  him  concentrate 
his  mind  upon  the  emotional  development  of  the  work 
with  a  full  and  foregone  appreciation  of  its  intellectual 
form.  But  still,  if  you  really  want  to  discover  the  techni- 
cal mysteries  of  the  orchestration,  you  must  get  inside  and 
look  more  closely  at  the  astonishing  works ;  nay,  you  must 
become  one  of  the  woi'ks ;  you  must  take  an  instrument, 
and  plod  away  in  the  orchestra  yourself.  When  you  have 
tried  that,  you  will  begin  to  understand  why  so  few  people 
succeed  in  writing  well  for  an  orchestra.  How  easy  it  is 
to  mistake  a  tenor  for  a  'cello  effect,  or  to  give  a  phrase  to 
the  clarionet  when  the  texture  or  consistency  of  the  har- 
mony would  be  best  consulted  by  the  thinner,  sweeter,  but 
equally  incisive  oboe. 

There  is,  therefore,  in  the  orchestra  incessant  work  for 
the  player's  mind;  and  as  he  is  also  greatly  privileged 
in  constantly  assisting  in  the  production  of  masterpieces, 
what  opportunities  for  the  culture  and  discipline  of  the 
emotional  regions  of  the  soul  are  his !  When  he  opens 
his  part  of  the  "  Italian  Symphony,"  or  plunges  into  the 
"  Fidelio,"  what  a  magnificent  panorama  of  emotion  opens 
out  before  him  !  But  it  is  no  unreal  spectacle.  Like  Ulys- 
ses, who  was  a  part  of  all  he  saw,  he  is  a  part  of  all  he 
hears ;  shall  not  something  of  the  spirit  and  power  of  the 
great  composers,  with  whose  works  he  is  constantly  iden- 
tifying himself,  pass  into  him  as  the  reward  of  his  enthusi- 
asm,  his  docility,  and  his  self-immolation  ? 

It  may  be  said  that  we  are  taking  an  ideal  view  of  or- 
chestral playing.  No  doubt  we  are  dealing  with  the  es- 


ORCHESTRAL  PLAYERS.  75 

•ence  of  the  thing  itself — not  as  it  is,  but  as  it  should  be. 
Practically  as  it  is,  the  vocation  of  the  orchestral  player 
has  many  drawbacks.  The  weary  repetition  of  what  he 
knows  for  the  sake  of  other  players  who  do  not  know  their 
parts,  the  constant  thwarting  of  the  gifted  players  by  the 
stolid  ones,  and  the  tension  of  long  and  harrowing  rehear- 
sals under  conductors  who  do  not  know  their  own  minds, 
or  who  can  not  impart  what  they  do  know  to  the  players, 
or  who  are  so  irritable,  cantankerous,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  so  vexatiously  exacting  as  to  destroy  every  particle 
of  pleasure  or  sympathy  with  their  work  in  the  breasts  of 
the  executants  at  the  very  moment  when  these  qualities 
are  most  indispensable  to  the  execution  of  the  music.  Then 
there  is  the  cheerless  musical  wear  and  tear  of  regular  or- 
chestral life.  The  pantomine  music,  not  in  moderation  and 
once  in  a  way,  but  every  night  all  through  a  protracted 
season ;  for  we  are  afraid  to  say  how  long  the  pantomine 
goes  on  after  the  departure  of  that  inveterate  bore,  Old 
Father  Christmas. 

Then  really  excellent  players  are  occasionally  subjected 
to  the  demoniac  influences  of  that  rhythmic  purgatory 
known  as  the  Quadrille  Band ;  or  the  humbler  violinists 
are  to  be  met  with,  accompanied  by  a  harp  and  cornet-a- 
piston,  making  what  is  commonly  understood  to  be  music 
for  the  dancers  in  "marble  halls,"  or  any  where  else,  it 
matters  little  enough  to  them.  Shall  we  blame  them  if 
they  look  upon  such  work  as  mere  mechanical  grind — as 
the  omnibus-horse  looks  upon  his  journey  to  the  city  and 
home  again — a  performance  inevitable,  indeed,  but  highly 
objectionable,  and  not  to  be  borne  save  for  the  sake  of  the 
feed  at  the  end  ?  Then  we  must  not  forget  the  low  sala- 
ries of  many  orchestral  players,  the  small  prospect  of  a 
slow  rise,  and  the  still  smaller  chance  of  ever  becoming 
leaders  in  any  orchestra  worth  leading.  Or,  again,  the 


76  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

weariness  and  disgust  of  your  efficient  men  at  seeing  them- 
selves kept  out  of  their  right  places  by  old,  incompetent 
players. 

On  the  Continent  wise  provisions  are  made,  and  retiring 
pensions  provided  by  government,  or  there  are  special  so- 
cieties for  superannuated  musicians.  Every  man  in  the  or- 
chestra knows  that  he  will  have  to  retire  when  his  hand 
begins  to  lose  its  cunning ;  in  his  old  age  he  is  honorably 
supported,  as  he  deserves  to  be,  and  his  place  is  filled  up 
by  an  efficient  substitute.  Art  does  not  suffer,  the  public 
does  not  suffer,  the  interests  of  music  are  not  jobbed,  and 
no  one  is  the  worse.  But  in  England  the  government 
treats  music  with  a  supercilious  smile,  and  with  the  most 
undisguised  stinginess ;  as  who  should  say, "  A  fig  for  your 
bands  and  Bear-gardens !"  And  the  prime  minister  would 
as  soon  think  of  granting  pensions  to  superannuated  musi- 
cians as  of  giving  an  annual  banquet  in  Westminster  Hall 
to  the  industrious  fraternity  of  the  metropolitan  organ- 
grinders. 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  say  at  what  age  a  man  gets 
past  his  work,  but  the  conductor  of  every  orchestra  knows 
very  well  who  it  is  that  mars  the  whole ;  and  it  is  quite 
notorious  that  whatever  inferiority  there  is  in  our  leading 
orchestras  in  comparison  with  leading  Continental  orches- 
tras is  chiefly  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  conductor  in  En- 
gland can  not  very  easily  get  rid  of  men  who  have  grown 
infirm  in  their  places,  and  who  would  have  retired  long 
ago  from  any  foreign  orchestra  as  a  matter  of  course. 

It  would  be  foolish  to  underrate  the  value  of  veteran 
experience  and  steadiness,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  muscles  will  stiffen,  and  the  ear  and  eye  will  grow  dull, 
and  that  many  a  man  whose  brain  is  still  active  may  be- 
come, through  mere  want  of  flexibility  and  feebleness  of 
nerve,  unfit  for  efficient  work  in  the  orchestra.  We  repeat 


CULTURE.  77 

emphatically,  it  is  impossible,  with  so  many  still  splendid 
old  players  before  the  public,  to  say  when  age  means  in- 
firmity ;  and  when  we  think  of  the  prodigies  of  military 
valor,  forensic  ability,  literary  and  artistic  power  which  we 
have  witnessed  within  the  last  few  years ;  when  we  recol- 
lect that  Lord  Brougham,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston  have  but  lately  passed  away ;  that  Thomas  Carlyle 
is  still  with  us ;  that  M.  Victor  Hugo  but  lately  published 
one  of  the  most  stirring  and  eloquent  apostrophes  to  Lib- 
erty;  that  Sir  E.  Landseer  continues  to  paint  his  best  pic- 
tures ;  that  M.  Auber  still  composed  operas  in  extreme  old 
age;  that  General  Garibaldi  is  still  ready  (1871)  to  draw 
the  sword ;  that  even  the  Pope  feels  equal  to  an  (Ecumen- 
ical Council ;  and  that  the  aged  monarch  of  Prussia,  in 
company  with  the  still  more  aged  Von  Moltke,  has  just 
been  leading  his  troops  to  victory  against  what  all  Europe 
supposed  to  be  the  greatest  military  nation  in  the  world — 
when  we  remember  a  few  of  such  facts,  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  nineteenth  century  is  emphatically  the  tri- 
umphant Era  of  Old  Age. 

That  musicians  are  commonly  devoid  of  culture  is  an  as- 

23       sertion  only  half  true.     The  culture  of  ideas  they 

Culture.  mav  or  mav  not  pOSsess  —  the  culture  of  emotion 

the  true  musician  has  in  a  degree  incomparably  greater 
than  the  self-satisfied  flaneurs,  who  talk  the  common  slang 
about  culture,  can  believe  or  understand.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  classes  of  musicians,  as  there  are  classes  of 
lawyers,  and  classes  of  painters.  There  are  pettifoggers, 
for  whom  no  job  is  too  dishonorable,  and  there  are  law 
lords  and  incorruptible  judges  of  the  realm ;  there  are  sign- 
board manufacturers,  and  servile  tricksters,  and  copyists, 
who  may  call  themselves  painters,  and  there  are  Wattees 
and  Holman  Hunts ;  and  so  there  are  drunken  fiddlers  and 


78  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

Joachims,  low  ballad-writers  and  Mendelssohns.  Still,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  an  ordinary  musician  is  likely  to  be 
less  cultured  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  term  than 
a  good  painter,  and  probably,  as  a  rule,  the  executive  mu- 
sicians, as  a  class  of  thoughtful  and  well-read  men,  rank  be- 
low the  Artist-world ;  and  for  this  reason :  They  have  not 
so  much  time  for  reading  and  thinking.  A  piano -forte 
teacher  gives  lessons  all  day  long;  an  orchestral  player 
must  practice  incessantly ;  so  must  the  solo  player.  It  may 
be  replied,  so  must  the  artist  paint  incessantly.  True ;  but 
practicing  on  an  instrument  to  keep  the  fingers  well "  in," 
or  to  master  difficult  passages,  is  almost  entirely  mechan- 
ical, and  painting  is  not. 

The  practice  of  musical  mechanism  is  not  intellectual — 
it  does  not  nourish  the  brain  or  feed  the  heart ;  it  does  not 
even  leave  the  mind  at  liberty  to  think — it  chokes  every 
thing  but  its  own  development,  and  that  is  mere  physical 
development.  But  as  the  painter  works  on,  every  stroke 
of  the  brush  is  not  only  a  mechanical  action,  but  a  thought 
or  an  emotion;  and  there  is  no  reason  why  the  emotions 
he  experiences  should  not  clothe  themselves  with  definite 
trains  of  definite  ideas — they  are  nearly  certain  to  do  so — 
he  will  think  when  he  paints  alone ;  he  can  also  converse 
while  painting;  all  his  manual  labor  is  inseparably  con- 
nected with  intellectual,  imaginative,  or  emotional  process- 
es. The  musician's  strict  exercise,  which,  after  all,  takes 
up  a  great  deal  of  his  time,  admits  of  very  little  intellect, 
imagination,  or  emotion.  It  requires  industry,  perception, 
and  nerve ;  in  short,  because  it  is  more  mechanical,  it  is 
therefore  less  refining  and  elevating.  And  this  is  the  worst 
that  can  be  said  concerning  the  Intellectual  effects  of  his 
essential  training  upon  the  Executive  Musician. 


MORALITY.  79 

Of  course,  good  people  who  think  music  and  the  drama 
27  necessarily  wicked  must  be  respected,  but  can  not 
Morality.  ^e  reasone(j  with.  However,  it  is  hardly  fair  not 
to  recognize  in  society  an  undercurrent  of  belief  to  the 
effect  that  executive  musicians  are  less  distinguished  for 
morality  than  their  neighbors.  The  belief  may  not  be  quite 
unfounded,  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  most  unfair.  Inspect 
closely  any  class  of  persons,  and  attention  to  morals  will 
not  appear  to  be  one  of  its  strong  points.  But  some  class- 
es fail  more  publicly  than  others.  The  executive  musician 
is  always  before  the  world,  and,  as  a  consequence,  his  pri- 
vate life  is  more  frequently  and  rudely  handled  than  other 
people's.  Yet  it  can  not  be  denied  that  he  has  fewer  out- 
ward inducements  to  be  moral,  and  more  temptations  to 
be  the  reverse,  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  men  in  other  pro- 
fessions. One  of  his  disadvantages  consists  in  the  compar- 
ative indifference  of  the  public  to  his  morals.  There  have 
been  cases  in  England  of  great  solo  players  excluded  from 
public  engagements  owing  to  a  momentary  sentiment  of 
indignant  virtue  on  the  part  of  the  Public,  and  received 
back  to  favor  only  a  few  months  after  some  more  than  usu- 
ally glaring  violation  of  morals.  Others  have  left  this  mor- 
al country  hurriedly,  and  under  a  cloud,  and  been  raptur- 
ously welcomed  back  to  London  in  the  following  season. 
So  long  as  the  virtuoso  plays  well,  the  Public  seems  will- 
ing to  condone  his  offenses  more  easily  than  those  of  any 
other  professional  man,  and  for  this  obvious  reason — it  feels 
no  direct  interest  in  his  morality.  An  intemperate  doctor 
may  poison  you,  a  dishonest  lawyer  may  cheat  you ;  but  a 
musician  may  be  both  intemperate  and  dishonest,  and  yet 
may  play  superbly,  which  means  that,  apart  from  morality, 
he  may  have  a  fine  perception  of  the  functions  of  musical 
sound,  and  a  delicate  executive  gift  in  expressing  the  subtle 
atmospheres  of  the  soul. 


80  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

That  intemperance  will  end  by  impairing  his  powers — 
that,  even  while  occasionally  stimulating  them  to  high 
achievements,  it  will  destroy  the  fine  balance  and  natural 
healthy  force  of  the  emotions  themselves — this  can  hardly 
be  doubted ;  and,  indeed,  within  the  last  few  years  we  have 
seen  lamentable  cases  in  point.  That  dishonesty  will  make 
the  musician  sadly  indifferent  to  the  interests  of  art  when 
opposed  to  his  own,  that  he  will  be  unscrupulous  in  the  use 
of  his  gifts,  and  unconscientious  in  music  as  in  other  things, 
this  we  might  fairly  expect,  and  it  is,  unhappily,  a  matter 
of  daily  notoriety ;  but  the  Public,  who  hears  what  he  can 
do,  does  not  much  trouble  itself  with  what  he  might  do ; 
and  it  is  just  this  apathy  which  destroys  one  very  common 
incentive  to  external  morality  by  removing  the  pressure 
put  upon  a  man  from  without  to  lead  a  respectable  life. 
What  is  here  said  of  the  male  portion  of  the  musical  com- 
munity is  equally  true  of  the  female  portion.  As  a  rule, 
women  have  been  far  more  valued  by  society  for  their  per- 
sonal virtue  than  for  their  gifts ;  and  as  an  eminent  writer 
has  observed,  society  condones  in  men  certain  offenses 
which  it  deems  almost  unpardonable  in  women,  because  it 
values  men,  and  needs  them  for  their  intellectual,  imagina- 
tive, or  administrative  powers  quite  independently  of  their 
morals;  but  when  women  come  before  the  world  as  pos- 
sessed of  gifts  which  cause  them  to  be  valued  apart  from 
their  virtue,  like  the  sterner  sex,  society  shows  a  disposi- 
tion to  extend  to  them  the  same  weak  indulgence  it  gives 
so  freely  and  so  selfishly  to  men. 

Again,  the  unhealthy  conditions  of  work  alluded  to 
above  oppose  special  and  often  very  great  obstacles  to 
virtue  ;  but  to  say  that  executive  musical  art  has  a  tend- 
ency to  demoralize,  or  that,  taking  every  thing  into  con- 
sideration, executive  musicians  as  a  class  are  worse  than 
other  people,  is  either  the  assertion  of  one  who  knows 


MORALITY.  81 

nothing  at  all  about  them  or  their  art,  or  who,  knowing 
them,  is  guilty  of  pronouncing  a  cruel  and  unjust  libel 
upon  both.  Together  with  a  sprinkling  of  very  distin- 
guished vocalists  and  instrumentalists  from  other  coun- 
tries, a  large  number  of  very  low-class  foreigners,  with 
foreign  habits  and  very  foreign  morals,  have  unhappily 
taken  up  their  abode  in  England.  They  announce  them- 
selves as  professors  of  music,  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that 
people  of  limited  information  and  intelligence  are  in  the 
habit  of  sometimes  visiting  the  irregularities  of  these  un- 
welcome strangers  upon  the  whole  of  the  musical  profes- 
sion. In  defense  of  music  in  general,  and  to  the  honor  of 
English  musicians  in  particular,  be  it  said,  that  whoever 
will  think  of  the  most  prominent  English  singers  and  play- 
ers now  before  the  public  will  have  to  recall  the  names  of 
a  number  of  distinguished  men  and  women  who  have  led 
laborious  and  honorable  lives,  and  who  are  justly  entitled 
to  the  esteem  and  affection  of  an  ever- widening  circle  of 
friends. 

But  if  we  turn  for  a  moment  from  the  world  of  Execu- 
tants to  the  world  of  Composers,  one  fact  must  strike  us 
— that  not  only  were  the  great  composers,  as  a  rule,  not 
addicted  to  the  excesses  which  some  would  have  us  believe 
almost  inseparable  from  a  musical  temperament,  but  they 
appear  to  have  been  singularly  free  from  them.  Without 
asserting  that  every  portion  of  a  man's  work  is  always  a 
true  index  of  his  character,  it  is,  nevertheless,  noteworthy 
that  so  many  great  composers  have  been  men  whose  emo- 
tions were  so  severely  disciplined,  and  whose  lives  were  so 
well  regulated,  that  they  stand  out  as  examples  not  only 
of  steady  and  indefatigable  workers,  but  also  of  high- 
minded  moral  and  even  religious  men.  Nor  is  it  true  that 
the  constant  emotional  excitement  of  a  composer's  life  is 
calculated  to  impair  his  health  and  bring  him  to  an  early 
6 


82  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

grave.  His  profession,  rightly  exercised,  does  not  lead  to 
the  unbalanced  excitement  of  sensuous  emotions,  which  is 
certainly  highly  prejudicial  to  both  moral  and  physical 
health,  but  to  the  orderly  education  and  discipline  of  emo- 
tion, which  is  a  very  different  thing.  This  consideration 
may  help  to  explain  not  only  the  settled  principle  and 
moral  impulse,  but  also  the  longevity  of  so  many  great 
composers.  The  early  Italian  masters  became  great  chief- 
ly through  their  sacred  music ;  and  while  it  must  not  be 
supposed  that  the  fact  of  composing  for  the  Church  makes 
a  man  holy,  we  can  not  deny  to  these  men,  as  a  class,  a 
great  deal  of  exalted  and  often  mystical  religious  fervor. 
Unhappily,  this  quality  does  not  seem  to  be  inconsistent 
with  an  occasional  laxity  of  morals  which  can  not  be  too 
much  deplored ;  but,  in  judging  the  men,  we  must  think  of 
the  age  in  which  they  lived,  the  temptations  to  which  they 
were  exposed,  and  the  loose  state  of  morals  which  in  Italy, 
Germany,  and  France  seems  at  certain  epochs  to  have 
been  all  but  universal.  We  shall  then  see  that  the  com- 
posers were  no  worse  than  their  neighbors,  and  we  shall 
be  surprised  to  find  how  often  they  actually  rose  superior 
to  the  moral  level  of  their  age  and  country. 

ALESSANDRO  SCARLATTI,  who  was  born  in  Sicily  in  1649, 
was  one  of  the  most  industrious  composers  that  ever  lived. 
He  discharged  for  many  years  the  functions  of  Royal 
Chapel  Master  at  Naples ;  but  his  chief  claim  to  the  es- 
teem and  affections  of  the  Neapolitans  consisted  in  his 
gratuitous  and  indefatigable  labors  as  music-master  in  a 
large  charity  school  known  under  the  name  of  "  Jesus 
Christ's  Poor  of  Loretto."  He  was  universally  respected. 

MABCELLO,  born  at  Venice,  1686,  underwent  what  some 
persons  would  call  a  regular  conversion.  As  he  was  hear- 
ing mass  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles,  the  pavement 
way,  and  let  him  through  into  the  vault  beneath. 


MORALITY.  83 

This  sudden  meeting  with  the  Dead  seems  to  have  made  a 
lasting  impression  upon  him,  and  he  is  said  to  have  aban- 
doned from  that  time  forth  his  somewhat  free  habits  for  a 
more  strict  style  of  living.  His  greatest  works  are  the 
"Psalmi"  and  "Laudi  Spirituali;"  and  his  monument  at 
the  Church  of  S.  Joseph  at  Brescia,  subscribed  to  by  all 
the  poets  and  musicians  of  the  age,  bears  the  inscription, 
"  Benedicto  Marcello,  patricio  Veneto,  piissimo  philologo." 

The  gentle  LALANDE,  born  in  1657,  was  much  respected 
by  the  dissolute  courtiers  of  Louis  XIV.  He  was  natu- 
rally of  a  religious  temperament,  nor  does  he  seem  to  have 
been  spoiled  by  the  corruption  of  the  Parisian  court.  He 
was  twice  married,  and  had  two  beautiful  daughters,  both 
of  whom  died ;  and  one  of  the  few  pious  sentiments  re- 
corded of  the  Grand  Monarque,  who  had  just  lost  his  own 
son,  the  Dauphin,  was  addressed  to  the  bereaved  composer: 
"  You  have  lost  two  daughters  full  of  merit ;  I  have  lost 
Monseigneur."  Then,  pointing  to  the  sky,  the  king  added, 
"  Lalande,  we  must  learn  submission  to  the  will  of  God." 

GLTTCK,  born  in  1714,  was  the  most  severe  and  conscien- 
tious of  men  in  his  own  vocation.  He  first  conceived  the 
germs  of  those  ideas  which  under  Mozart  were  destined  to 
blossom  into  the  classical  school  of  German  opera.  Not- 
withstanding his  immense  popularity,  he  made  few  friends, 
but  those  few  respected  him.  Incessant  labor  at  length 
shattered  his  naturally  robust  constitution,  and  in  his  de- 
clining years  he  was  unfortunately  somewhat  addicted  to 
drinking ;  yet  no  one  remembering  what  Paris  was  in  the 
time  of  the  Gluckists  and  Piccinists,  Marmontel,  D'Alem- 
bert,  and  Marie  Antoinette,  can  deny  that  Gluck,  in  his 
best  days,  gave  a  good  example  to  the  dissolute  capital  of 
moderation  and  self-respect. 

Of  dear  old  SEBASTIAN  BACH,  born  at  Eisenach,  1685,  let 
us  merely  say  that  he  was  a  good  husband,  father,  and 


84  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

friend ;  in  the  words  of  his  friend  Kittell,  "  he  was  an  ex- 
cellent man." 

HANDEL,  born  in  1685,  need  not  found  his  claim  to  relig- 
ion on  the  number  and  sublimity  of  his  sacred  composi- 
tions alone.  He  lived  so  long  among  us  that  we  know  he 
was  a  good  man.  He  was  brought  up  as  a  Lutheran  Prot- 
estant, and  in  an  age  of  bitter  sectarianism  has  often  been 
charged  with  lukewarmness  for  refusing  to  define  accurate- 
ly his  religious  opinions,  and  still  more  for  refusing  to  ex- 
communicate Roman  Catholics,  Jews,  Turks,  infidels,  and 
heretics ;  but  his  honor  was  unblemished,  his  personal  pu- 
rity (a  matter  in  the  eyes  of  the  religious  world  apparently 
of  less  consequence  than  theological  opinions)  was  always 
absolutely  unquestioned,  and  his  genuine  piety  is  fully  at- 
tested by  his  affectionate  biographer  Hawkins. 

HAYDN,  born  in  1732,  was  naturally  of  a  most  happy  and 
equable  disposition.  For  many  years  he  bore  with  great 
patience  and  fortitude  the  society  of  a  most  uncongenial 
wife ;  and  although  in  the  decline  of  life,  after  a  friendly 
separation  had  been  effected,  and  a  liberal  allowance  set- 
tled upon  the  partner  of  his  sorrows,  his  relations  with  a 
certain  Mademoiselle  Boselli  are  said  to  have  been  more 
than  Platonic,  this  accusation  has  never  been  proved,  and 
certainly  no  words  would  be  less  fit  to  describe  his  hab- 
its of  life  at  any  time  than  "  excess"  or  "  intemperance." 
Whatever  may  have  been  his  weaknesses,  it  is  certain  that 
Papa  Haydn  to  the  end  retained  a  lively  sense  of  religion, 
and  it  is  interesting  and  characteristic  of  this  great  and 
simple  man  to  know  that  he  never  began  writing  without 
inscribing  his  compositions  with  the  words  "In  nomine 
Domini,"  and  that  whenever  he  found  it  difficult  to  com- 
pose he  would  resort  to  his  rosary  in  prayer,  a  practice 
which  he  declared  was  always  accompanied  with  the  hap- 
piest results.  He  was  a  man  without  ambition  and  with- 


MORALITY.  85 

out  jealousy,  simply  devoted  to  his  art,  quite  uncovetous, 
and,  until  comparatively  late  in  life,  equally  unconscious 
of  his  own  immense  merit  and  widespread  fame. 

CHERUBINI,  born  at  Florence  in  1760,  for  many  years 
commanded  the  respect  and  admiration  of  the  French  pub- 
lic by  his  steady  and  conscientious  labors  at  the  Conserva- 
toire at  Paris. 

SPOHR,  born  at  Brunswick,  1784,  and  MEYERBEER,  born 
at  Berlin,  1794,  were  both  distinguished  for  their  abste- 
mious and  laborious  lives.  The  name  of  neither  is  associ- 
ated with  excesses  of  any  kind :  both  were  personally  re- 
spected and  beloved  by  a  large  circle  of  friends. 

MOZART,  born  in  1756,  at  Salzbourg,  was  a  man  of  the 
most  singularly  well-balanced  character.  His  natural  dispo- 
sitions seemed  all  good,  his  affectional  instincts  all  healthy, 
and  his  religious  life  earnest  and  practical.  The  following 
passage  out  of  one  of  his  letters  to  his  father,  in  1782,  will 
give  a  better  idea  of  the  man's  rare  simplicity  and  relig- 
ious feeling  than  pages  of  eulogy : 

"  Previous  to  our  marriage  we  had  for  some  time  past  attended  mass 
together,  as  well  as  confessed  and  taken  the  Holy  Communion,  and  I 
found  that  I  never  prayed  so  fervently  nor  confessed  so  piously  as  by  her 
side,  and  she  felt  the  same.  In  short,  we  are  made  for  each  other ;  and 
God,  who  orders  all  things,  will  not  forsake  us." 

BEETHOVEN,  born  at  Bonn,  1770,  was  equally  great  in 
his  intellect  and  his  affections.  How  deep  and  tender  was 
that  noble  heart,  those  know  who  have  read  his  letters  to 
his  abandoned  nephew  whom  he  commits  so  earnestly  to 
"  God's  holy  keeping."  There  is  no  stain  upon  his  life. 
His  integrity  was  spotless;  his  purity  unblemished;  his 
generosity  boundless ;  his  affections  deep  and  lasting ;  his 
piety  simple  and  sincere.  "To-day  happens  to  be  Sun- 
day," he  writes  to  a  friend  in  the  most  unaffected  way, "  so 
I  will  quote  you  something  out  of  the  Bible :  '  See  that  ye 


86  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

love  one  another.'"  Beethoven  was  not  only  severely 
moral  and  deeply  religious,  but  he  has  this  further  claim 
to  the  admiration  and  respect  of  the  musical  world,  that 
his  ideal  of  art  was  the  highest,  and  that  he  was  true  to 
his  ideal — utterly  and  disinterestedly  true  to  the  end. 

Of  MENDELSSOHN,  born  at  Hamburg  in  1809,  it  is  diffi- 
cult even  yet  to  speak  without  emotion.  Many  are  still 
alive  who  knew  him  and  loved  him.  That  keen,  piercing 
intellect,  flashing  with  the  summer  lightning  of  sensibility 
and  wit ;  that  full,  generous  heart ;  that  great  and  child- 
like simplicity  of  manners ;  that  sweet  humanity,  and  ab- 
solute devotion  to  all  that  was  true  and  noble,  coupled 
with  an  instinctive  shrinking  from  all  that  was  mean ;  that 
fierce  scorn  of  a  lie;  that  strong  hatred  of  hypocrisy ;  that 
gentle,  unassuming  goodness — all  this,  and  more  than  this, 
they  knew  who  knew  Mendelssohn.  Those  volumes  of 
priceless  letters,  and  that  life  of  him  which  some  day  must 
be  written,  will  make  him  beloved  and  honored  forever  by 
generations  yet  unborn.  Like  Beethoven,  he  had  the  high- 
est conception  of  the  dignity  of  art  and  the  moral  respon- 
sibility of  the  artist.  In  this  age  of  mercenary  musical 
manufacture  and  art  degradation,  Mendelssohn  towers 
above  his  contemporaries  like  a  moral  light-house  in  the 
midst  of  a  dark  and  troubled  sea.  His  light  always  shone 
strong  and  pure.  The  winds  of  heaven  were  about  his 
head,  and  the  "  STILL  SMALL  VOICE"  was  in  his  heart.  In 
a  lying  generation  he  was  true,  and  in  an  adulterous  gen- 
eration he  was  pure,  and  not  popularity  nor  gain  could 
tempt  him  to  sully  the  pages  of  his  spotless  inspiration 
with  one  meretricious  effect  or  one  impure  association. 
Of  Robert  le  Diable  he  writes :  "  In  this  opera  a  young  girl 
divests  herself  of  her  garments  and  sings  a  song  to  the 
effect  that  next  day  at  this  time  she  will  be  married.  All 
this  produces  effect,  but  I  have  no  music  for  such  things. 


LONGEVITY.  87 

I  consider  it  ignoble.  So,  if  the  present  epoch  exacts  this 
style  and  considers  it  indispensable,  then  I  will  write  ora- 
torios." These  are  the  words  of  the  greatest  master  of 
musical  form  since  Mozart,  and  also  of  the  most  popular 
composer  who  ever  lived.  We  commend  them  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  artistic  and  musical  circles  in  England. 

The  notion  that  the  pursuit  of  music,  owing  to  its  excit- 
28  ing  character,  is  prejudicial  to  health  and  longev- 
Longevity.  j^  gathers  small  weight  from  facts.  Great  com- 
posers, as  a  rule,  have  been  remarkably  healthy  and  long- 
lived.  Scarlatti  was  76  when  he  died ;  Lalande,  76 ;  Pal- 
estrina,  70 ;  Handel,  74 ;  Bach,  65  ;  Marcello,  53 ;  Gluck,  73 ; 
Piccini,  72  ;  Haydn,  77;  Paisiello,  76 ;  Cherubini,  82  ;  Beet- 
hoven, 55  ;  Spohr,  75  ;  Meyerbeer,  70 ;  Rossini,  78  ;  and 
Monsieur  Auber  still  composed,  and  was  in  the  enjoyment 
of  excellent  health,  at  the  advanced  age  of  88.  On  the 
other  hand,  Purcell  died  at  the  early  age  of  37;  Pergolesi 
at  27 ;  Mozart  at  35  ;  Bellini  at  33  ;  Schubert  at  31 ;  Men- 
delssohn at  38 ;  Chopin  at  39. 

We  fear  that,  from  causes  already  referred  to,  the  health 
and  longevity  of  executive  musicians  as  a  class  might  bear 
a  somewhat  less  satisfactory  scrutiny ;  but  we  must  again 
repeat  that  such  a  result  would  be  owing,  not  to  tenden- 
cies inherent  in  the  executive  art  itself,  so  much  as  to  the 
unfair  and  sometimes  pitiless  conditions  which  have  been 
too  often  imposed  by  society  upon  the  Executive  Musician. 

vm. 

LIKE  the  sound  of  bells  at  night,  breaking  the  silence 

29          only  to  lead  the  spirit  into  deeper  peace ;  like  a 

Th»  Lutener.  jea(jen  C1OU(J  at  morn,  rising  in  gray  twilight  to 

hang  as  a  golden  mist  before  the  furnace  of  the  sun ;  like 

the  dull,  deep  pain  of  one  who  sits  in  an  empty  room, 


88  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

watching  the  shadows  of  the  firelight,  full  of  memories-, 
like  the  plaint  of  souls  that  are  wasted  with  sighing ;  like 
paeans  of  exalted  praise ;  like  sudden  songs  from  the  open 
gates  of  Paradise — so  is  Music. 

Like  one  who  stands  in  the  midst  of  a  hot  and  terrible 
battle,  drunk  with  the  fiery  smoke,  and  hearing  the  roar 
of  cannon  in  a  trance;  like  one  who  sees  the  thick  fog 
creep  along  the  shore,  and  gathers  his  cloak  about  him  as 
the  dank  wind  strikes  a  thin  rain  upon  his  face ;  like  one 
who  finds  himself  in  a  long  cathedral  aisle,  and  hears  the 
pealing  organ,  and  sees  a  kneeling  crowd  smitten  with 
fringes  of  colored  light ;  like  one  who  from  a  precipice  leaps 
out  upon  the  warm  midsummer  air  toward  the  peaceful 
valleys  below,  and,  feeling  himself  buoyed  up  with  wings 
that  suddenly  fail  him,  wakens  in  great  despair  from  his 
wild  dream,  so  is  he  who  can  listen  and  understand. 

No  such  scenes  need  be  actually  present  to  the  LISTEN- 
ER; yet  the  emotions  which  might  accompany  them  mu- 
sic enables  him  to  realize.  To  him  belongs  a  threefold 
privilege.  He  hears  the  composer's  conception,  he  feels 
the  player's  or  conductor's  individuality,  and  he  brings  to 
both  the  peculiar  temperature,  or  what  I  may  call  the  har- 
monic level  of  his  own  soul.  Ask  him  to  describe  his  feel- 
ings, and  he  will  seek  some  such  imagery  as  I  have  used 
above.  And  there  can  be  no  great  objection  to  this  so 
long  as  such  an  expression  of  feeling  passes  for  what  it  is 
worth,  and  no  more.  No  music — except  imitative  music 
(which  is  rather  noise  than  music),  or  music  acting  through 
association — has  in  itself  power  to  suggest  scenes  to  the 
mind's  eye.  When  we  seek  to  explain  our  musical  emo- 
tions we  look  about  for  images  calculated  to  excite  similar 
emotions,  and  strive  to  convey  through  these  images  to 
others  the  effect  produced  by  music  upon  ourselves.  The 
method  is,  no  doubt,  sufficiently  clumsy  and  inadequate, 


THE  LISTENER.  89 

but  it  helps  to  make  clear  some  things  in  connection  with 
our  musical  impressions  which  might  otherwise  puzzle  us. 

Perhaps  the  great  puzzle  of  all  is  why,  if  music  has  any 
meaning,  different  people  suppose  different  things  to  be 
shadowed  forth  by  the  same  piece.  The  answer  is,  be- 
cause Music  expresses  Emotion.  Now,  as  I  have  shown, 
the  same  emotion  may  take  very  different  forms,  or  ex- 
press itself  by  very  different  images,  according  to  circum- 
stances. 

When  the  fire-irons  are  thrown  down,  a  sleeper  may 
start  from  his  slumbers  under  the  impression  that  he  is  in 
Strasbourg  during  the  late  siege,  and  that  a  shell  has  just 
burst  into  his  room ;  or  that  he  finds  himself  up  in  the 
Westminster  belfry  when  Big  Ben  strikes  the  hour;  or 
that  a  great  rock  has  rolled  from  a  precipitous  cliff  into 
the  sea,  threatening  to  crush  him;  or  the  dreamer  will 
raise  his  hand  in  fright  to  ward  off  an  impending  blow 
which  seems  to  descend  upon  his  skull.  Here,  then,  are  a 
number  of  distinct  images  which  might  be  connected  with 
the  same  emotion.  If,  then,  in  sleep,  the  Emotional  Region 
is  so  ready  to  assimilate  appropriate  ideas,  no  wonder  if  it 
retain  this  property  when  the  mind  is  in  full  and  wakeful 
activity.  Mr.  Grewgious's  emotions  afford  a  fine  example 
of  this.  One  and  the  same  energetic  feeling  finds  vent  in 
two  separate  and  equally  forcible  ideas  in  th/»  following 
remarkable  passage : 

"  '  I  will ! '  cried  Mr.  Grewgious.     '  Damn  him ! 
'  Confound  his  politics. 
Frustrate  his  knavish  tricks, 
On  thee  his  hopes  to  fix — 

Damn  him  again.' 

After  this  most  extraordinary  outburst,  Mr.  Grewgious,  quite  be»i(J«  him- 
self, plunged  about  the  room  to  all  appearance  undecided  whether  he  wa» 
in  ajit  of  loyal  enthusiasm  or  combative  denunciation."'—  ("Edwin  Drood," 
p.  156.) 


90  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

Emotion  aroused  by  music,  in  like  manner,  clothes  itself 
in  different  draperies  of  ideas.  Six  different  people,  hear- 
ing the  same  piece  of  music,  will  give  you  six  different  ac- 
counts of  it.  Yet  between  all  their  explanations  there  will 
be  a  certain  kind  of  emotional  congruity,  quite  enough  to 
persuade  us  that  they  have  been  under  a  fixed  influence 
and  the  same  influence.  But  here  we  are  constrained  to 
push  this  question  well  home.  Is  music,  after  all,  in  any 
sense  a  fixed  influence  ?  Is  it  really  expressive  of  the  same 
emotion  to  different  people  ?  Yes,  music  is  the  same,  but 
people  are  not.  People  think  and  feel  on  different  planes 
of  thought  and  feeling. 

o  o 

There  are  different  Planes  of  Emotion.     If  your  charac- 
30.       ter  is  base,  the  plane  of  your  emotion  will  be  low. 

Planes  of 

Emotion.  If  your  character  is  noble,  the  plane  of  your  emo- 
tion will  be  high.  Every  emotion  is  capable  of  being  ex- 
pressed in  both  planes.  For  example,  what  is  craven  fear 
in  a  low  plane  becomes  a  reverent  awe  when  expressed  in 
a  high  plane.  Mean  and  gnawing  spite  in  a  low  plane  be- 
comes an  emotion  of  bitter  and  just  vengeance  in  a  high 
one,  and  low  desire  is  raised  to  the  power  of  pure  and 
burning  love.  The  question  for  the  listener  then  is,  What 
are  his  planes  of  thought  and  feeling — in  other  words,  what 
is  the  character  of  his  musical  mediumship  ?  Music  will 
give  him  whatever  he  is  capable  of  receiving.  The  same 
strain  will  kindle  the  same  emotion  with  its  elations,  de- 
pressions, velocities,  intensities,  etc.,  in  the  plane  of  awe 
and  in  the  plane  of  fear.  The  mind  habitually  at  home  in 
meanness  and  spite  will  yield  its  emotions  in  that  plane  to 
combinations  of  music  which,  to  a  nobler  spirit,  suggest 
the  higher  longings  for  a  retributive  justice.  He  whose 
ideas  of  Love  are  merely  sensual  will  travel  contentedly 
along  a  correspondingly  groveling  plane  of  emotion,  while 


PLANES  OF  EMOTION.  01 

the  very  same  music  will  kindle  in  another  the  noble  sell- 
abandonment  of  a  lofty  and  purifying  Passion. 

This  surely  explains  how  very  easy  it  is  to  put  different 
words  to  the  same  song.  Handel  constantly  used  up  mel- 
odies which  had  done  duty  as  love-songs  in  operas,  and 
made  them  the  vehicles  for  religious  aspiration  and  prayer. 
The  supplicating  love-song,  "  Cara  sposa  amante  cara,"  in 
Itinaldo,  raised  from  the  plane  of  a  lover's  adoration  to  the 
high  level  of  devotional  longing,  becomes  the  sacred  air, 
"  Hear  my  crying."  The  exalting  strain  of  earth, "  To  the 
triumph  of  our  fury,"  is  raised  to  the  high  plane  of  a  devo- 
tional paean  in  "Praise  ye  Jehovah,  which  dwelleth  in 
Zion."  We  wish,  for  the  honor  of  music  and  for  the  honor 
of  Handel,  it  could  be  said  that  he  was  always  equally  con- 
scientious in  choosing  words  of  higher  or  lower  cougruity 
to  the  feeling  of  the  music ;  but,  like  so  many  great  com- 
posers, he  seems  to  have  been  often  indifferent  to  his  words, 
under  the  conviction  that  the  music  was  all-powerful  to 
convey  the  right  emotional  expression,  whatever  the  words 
might  say  to  the  contrary.  But  the  difficulties  with  which 
composers  have  to  deal  in  setting  several  verses  to  the 
same  piece  of  melody  are  often  very  great,  and  if  we  at- 
tempt, like  Wagner,  to  make  every  bar — almost  every  note 
— correspond  to  a  word,  we  may  almost  say  that  such  dif- 
ficulties can  only  be  surmounted  by  the  sacrifice  of  melody 
and  the  destruction  of  musical  form.  We  must  be  content 
if  the  words  selected  help  to  set  the  mind  going  in  a  cer- 
tain plane  of  emotion.  We  may  then  hope  to  find  them 
true  enough  in  the  main,  although  quite  unreasonable 
when  pressed  in  detail. 

Poor  Weber,  in  his  famous  "  Mermaid"  song  in  Oberon, 
has  the  first  verse  thus : 

"  Softly  sighs  the  voice  of  evening, 

Stealing  through  yon  willow  groves." 


92  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

And  in  the  next  he  has  to  set  the  same  exquisitely  peace* 
ful  melody  to  the  words — 

"Oh,  what  terrors  fill  my  bosom ! 

Where,  my  Rudolph,  dost  thou  roam  ?" 

But  the  two  verses,  taken  as  a  whole,  are  quite  near  enough 
to  the  general  emotion  expressed  by  their  music,  for  the 
last  two  lines  of  the  first  verse  are, 

"While  the  stars,  like  guardian  spirits, 
Set  their  nightly  watch  above," 

and  the  last  two  lines  of  the  second  verse,  which  begins 
with  the  highly  perturbed  sentiment  above  quoted,  stand 
thus: 

"Oh,  may  Heaven's  protection  shelter 
Him  my  heart  must  ever  love !" 

Of  course,  in  speaking  of  high  and  low  planes  of  emotion, 
I  have  here  assumed  what  I  have  tried  to  establish  in  this 
First  Book,  II.,  6  :  that  Emotions,  although  traversed  by 
Ideas,  are  not  merely  states  of  sensation  produced  by  one 
idea,  or  any  number  of  ideas,  but  enjoy  an  independent  ex- 
istence and  a  special  character  of  their  own,  which  give 
them  a  moral  dignity,  and  enable  them  to  place  them- 
selves at  the  disposal  of  ideas  congenial  to  their  various 
planes. 

But  I  think  at  this  point  an  objector  may  fairly  say, 
si.         After  all,  then,  music  does  not  determine  what 

Shakspeare  _  __          .  , 

and  Raphael,  you  call  the  Plane  of  our  Junctions  —  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  either  a  high  or  low  plane  of  Love,  for  in- 
stance— but  merely  lends  itself  to  each  individual,  and  is 
willing  to  express  the  force,  feebleness,  or  complexity  of  his 
emotions  in  any  plane  in  which  they  may  happen  to  lie  at 
the  time.  No  doubt  the  moral  effect  of  music  largely  de- 
pends upon  the  moral  state  of  the  listener;  but  so  does  the 
moral  effect  of  painting,  and  every  thing  else.  Show  me 


SHAKSPEARE  ASD  RAPHAEL.  93 

what  a  man  is,  and  I  will  show  you  the  kind  of  influences 
he  is  likely  to  assimilate.  I  will  show  how  what  to  others 
shall  be  harmless,  shall  to  him  be  as  poison ;  how  he  will 
select  from  what  he  sees  and  hears  every  thing  that  is  con- 
genial to  his  disposition,  and  leave  the  rest ;  in  this  sense 
all  the  arts  will  give  him  back  the  reflection  of  himself — 
he  will  "  see  himself  in  all  he  sees ;  it  does  not,  therefore, 
follow  that  there  will  be  nothing  else  to  see.  A  work  of 
art  may  really  be  calculated  to  create  a  very  high  level  of 
emotion,  yet  a  man  may  be  so  base  that,  owing  to  a  refu- 
sal on  his  part  to  see,  or  a  willful  distortion  of  what  he  sees, 
or  a  wanton  selection  of  only  such  suggestions  as  coincide 
with  what  is  base  in  him,  the  work  of  art  may  produce 
nothing  but  an  emotion  worked  out  on  the  level  of  his  own 
baseness.  To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure ;  but  the  vicious 
will  find  in  the  most  guileless  innocence  only  one  more  in- 
centive to  vice.  The  noblest  themes  may  also  be  approach- 
ed through  licentious  avenues.  But  what  should  we  say 
of  a  man  who  read  through  Shakspeare  and  selected  only 
the  coarse  passages  for  his  meditation,  viewing  all  the  oth- 
ers as  in  some  way  connected  with  them,  but  existing  only 
for  their  sakes  ?  We  should  say  not  Shakspeare  is  a  low 
teacher,  but  the  man  who  receives  such  an  impression  from 
Shakspeare  is  a  low  man.  What  should  we  say  of  one  who 
accepted  the  "  Fornarina"  of  the  Barberini  as  the  true  type 
of  Raphael's  art,  and  viewed  all  his  Madonnas  from  that 
ignoble  stand-point  ?  We  should  say,  of  course,  the  man's 
own  mind  was  to  blame  for  the  deplorable  nature  of  his 
impressions.  There  was  that  in  the  art  of  Raphael,  there 
is  that  in  the  teaching  of  Shakspeare,  which  is  not  only  ca- 
pable of,  but  infinitely  more  conducive  to  a  high  than  to  a 
low  state  of  feeling.  And  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  ex- 
actly the  same  of  music.  It  is,  more  than  any  other  art, 
ready  to  mould  itself  about  our  emotions;  but  it  is  unde- 


04  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

niable  that  music,  however  we  may  wrest  it  to  express  our 
own  levels  of  feelings,  has  its  own  proper  and  distinct  lev- 
els, which  it  should  be  our  business  to  discover  and  appro- 
priate, if  we  wish  to  understand  or  rightly  estimate  a  com- 
poser's work.  And  this  is  so  true,  that  at  times  the  music 
itself  opposes  the  greatest  obstacles  to  any  attempts  on 
our  part  to  twist  it  into  accordance  with  our  private  levels 
of  feeling. 

The  modern  Italian  music  is  so  imbued  with  the  lan- 
32  guid  sentimentalism  in  which  that  nation  has 
Ctermanasen-  until  lately  been  sunk,  that,  however  vigorous 
we  may  feel,  we  grow  insensibly  languid  and 
sentimental  in  either  hearing  or  singing  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  you  can  not  sentimentalize  Beethoven's  music ;  you 
can  not  make  it  a  vehicle  for  permanently  morbid  trains  of 
emotion.  When  it  deals  with  the  emotions  of  Love,  for  in- 
stance, it  deals  with  them  on  the  high  planes  of  pure  and 
strong  passion.  Beethoven  is  the  "  true  and  tender  North." 
Italy  is  the  "  fierce  and  fickle  South."  The  Italians  know 
this,  and  that  is  why  the  Italians  dislike  Beethoven.  They 
can  not  make  his  music  express  emotion  down  to  their  lev- 
el, and  so  they  do  not  sing  him  or  play  him.  Nothing  is 
more  ludicrous  than  to  hear  a  fashionable  Italian  pianist 
attempt  a  sonata  of  Beethoven.  Exaggerated  pathos  has 
to  be  pumped  into  the  quiet  phrases,  hectic  explosions  must 
be  let  off  where  nothing  but  a  grave  forte  is  required,  and 
the  repose  of  the  whole  is  broken  up  by  an  uneasy  effer- 
vescence which  shows  that  the  player  is  like  a  fish  on  shore 
— excited  and  bewildered,  but  quite  out  of  his  element. 

The  emotional  plane  of  Italy  is  one  thing,  and  that  of 
Germany  is  another.  Your  clown  may  put  on  the  monk's 
cowl,  but  he  forgets  to  wipe  off  the  paint,  and  by-and-by, 
in  spite  of  his  costume,  he  will  grin  and  throw  his  somer- 


ITALIAN  AND  GERMAN  SENTIMENT.  95 

sault  as  usual.  Let  any  one  who  doubts  that  music  is  real- 
ly capable  of  pitching  a  high  plane  for  the  emotions  to 
work  in,  recall  Beethoven's  love -song  "Adelaide."  No 
modern  Italian  master  could  have  written  that  song.  No 
one  can  suppose  the  melody  to  be  expressive  of  languid 
sentimentality.  We  are  thrilled;  we  are  not  dissolved, 
we  are  moved,  yet  without  losing  our  self-control ;  and  we 
are  too  much  in  earnest  to  be  the  mere  sport  of  our  emo- 
tions. They  sweep  with  flame  and  thunder  through  the 
soul,  leaving  its  atmosphere  purified  and  sweetened  by  the 
storm.  Let  us  now  think  of  any  popular  Italian  love-song, 
e.<?.,"Si  fossi  un  Angelo  del  Paradise  non  potere  vivere  di 
te  diviso."  Most  of  our  readers  may  have  heard  this  song 
by  Marras,  and  it  is  a  very  typical  one.  The  emotions  are 
all  upon  a  low  plane.  The  kind  of  man  who  could  so  ex- 
press his  love  is  an  artificial  sentimentalist ;  his  feeling  is 
at  once  exaggerated  and  extravagant,  but  not  deep ;  and 
we  have  a  shrewd  idea  that  the  whole  thing  is  poured  out 
by  a  sham  lover,  in  the  presence  of  a  person  of  a  doubtful 
character,  by  the  light  of  an  artificial  moon.  Without  do- 
ing absolute  violence  to  the  obvious  intention  of  Beetho- 
ven, you  can  not  sentimentalize  "Adelaide,"  whereas  it  is 
impossible  to  do  any  thing  else  with  such  a  song  as  "Si 
fossi  un  Angelo."  If  the  reader  admits  the  justice  of  the 
above  remarks,  he  can  hardly  refuse  to  believe  that  music 
not  only  expresses  the  various  qualities  of  emotion,  but  has 
also  the  power — subject,  no  doubt,  to  perturbing  influences 
— of  determining  the  level  of  emotion,  or  what  may  be 
termed  the  moral  atmosphere  of  feeling. 

And  now  it  is  a  very  noteworthy  thing,  as  bearing  upon 
„  33-       the  life  of  a  Nation,  that  whatever  the  spirit  which 

Patriotic 

Songs,  pervades  its  music  happens  to  be  —  whether  that 
spirit  be  languid  and  erotic,  as  in  Italy ;  or  frivolous,  grace- 


96  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

fol,  noisy,  and,  at  times,  blustering,  as  in  France — the  mu- 
sic of  patriotic  tunes  and  national  anthems  is  invariably 
earnest  and  dignified.  The  tune  known  as  Garibaldi's 
Hymn,  which  raged  like  a  fever  throughout  Italy  during 
the  Revolution,  is  so  fresh,  and  buoyant,  and  manly  in  its 
cheerful  vigor  and  determination,  that  it  fails  to  suggest  a 
single  characteristic  of  modern  Italian  music,  save  only 
that  exemplary  one  of  clear  and  facile  melody.  The  time 
for  Love-languor  is  past ;  the  sun  of  Liberty  has  dawned, 
the  breeze  is  on  the  mountain,  the  bugle  sounds  the  reveille, 
and  the  youth  of  Italy,  active,  alert,  hopeful,  and  confident, 
march  cheerfully  to  the  deliverance  of  their  beautiful  but 
enslaved  country.  In  the  Marseillaise  there  is  an  almost 
sombre  severity,  wholly  unlike  the  frivolous  superficial 
grace  and  sentimental  pathos  of  the  ordinary  French  school. 
The  men  who  sing  it  are  not  playing  at  war,  like  fools,  nor 
are  they  mere  children,  delighting  in  its  outward  pomp  and 
circumstance.  They  trudge  on,  footsore  and  weary,  know- 
ing all  the  horror  and  the  pain  that  is  in  store  for  them, 
and  still  willing  to  conquer  and  to  die.  That  is  the  spirit 
of  the  Marseillaise ;  and  in  it,  as  in  Garibaldi's  Hymn,  the 
seriousness  of  the  crisis  has  called  forth  the  finest  qualities 
of  both  the  French  and  Italian  characters,  and  banished  for 
a  time  what  is  languishing  in  the  one  and  frivolous  in  the 
other.  I  need  hardly  allude  here  to  the  English,  Austrian, 
and  Russian  hymns,  or  to  our  own  national  anthem,  as 
there  has  never  been  any  question  about  the  musical  merit, 
dignity,  and  earnestness  of  these. 

Philosophers  have  often  been  at  a  loss  to  explain  the  se- 
cret of  the  strange  power  which  patriotic  tunes  seem  to 
exercise  over  the  people,  and  especially  over  the  armies 
of  nations.  Historians  have  been  contented  simply  to  re- 
cord the  fact ;  but  the  mystery  is  at  an  end  if  we  are  will- 
ing to  attribute  to  music  the  power  which  I  have  claimed 


MUSICAL  PERTURBATIONS.  97 

for  it,  of  pitching  high  the  plane  of  the  emotions,  and  driv- 
ing them  home  with  the  most  efficacious  and  incomparable 
energy. 

The  laws  which  regulate  the  effect  of  music  upon  the 
34.         listener  are  subject  to  many  strange  perturba- 

MuBicalPer-     .  J  .          / 

turbations.  tions.  Unless  we  admit  this  to  be  the  case,  and 
try  and  detect  the  operation  of  certain  irregular  influences, 
we  shall  be  at  a  loss  to  understand  why,  if  music  really 
has  its  own  planes  as  well  as  progressions  of  emotion,  gay 
music  should  make  us  sad,  and  solemn  music  should  some- 
times provoke  a  smile.  Musical  perturbations  are  some- 
times due  to  the  singer,  player,  or  conductor — sometimes 
to  the  listener.  Madame  Lind-Goldschmidt  had,  or  let  us 
rather  say  has,  the  power  of  perturbing  a  trivial  melody 
of  any  kind  almost  to  any  extent.  A  magical  prolongation 
of  single  notes  here  and  there,  until  the  vulgarity  of  the 
rhythm  be  broken — a  pause,  a  little  appogiatura,  even  a 
smile — and  the  original  melody,  such  as  we  may  know  it 
to  be,  is  changed  and  sublimated  into  the  high  expression 
of  a  high  individuality.  Ernst,  certainly  the  most  roman- 
tic player  we  have  had  since  Paganini,  possessed  the  same 
marvelous  quality  of  perturbing  almost  every  thing  he 
played  until  it  became  absolutely  nothing  but  a  melodic 
expression  of  his  own  wild  mood.  Those  who  remember 
the  way  in  which  he  was  wont  to  play  one  of  his  great 
solos  on  Hungarian  airs,  with  orchestral  accompaniments, 
will  remember  the  profound  meditation,  almost  coma,  into 
which  he  seemed  to  fall  in  the  middle  of  one  of  those 
slow  and  measured  melodies — losing  the  sense  of  time  and 
rhythm  —  allowing,  as  it  were,  his  own  soul  to  float  out 
upon  the  waves  of  melody,  which  swelled  and  shook  with 
sensitive  thrills,  holding  the  audience  breathless,  until,  in 
the  utter  stillness  of  the  room,  it  was  impossible  to  tell 
7 


98  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MOEALS. 

when  the  notes  actually  ceased  to  vibrate.  Such  players 
as  he  must  be  classed  under  the  head  of  "those  who  ex- 
press themselves  through  the  music,"  just  as  such  players 
as  Joachim  belong  emphatically  to  the  class  of  those  who 
invariably  express  the  composer's  thought,  not  their  own. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  allude  to  the  manner  of  any  liv- 
ing conductors  to  establish  the  fact  that  immense  powers 
of  perturbation  are  in  the  hands  of  orchestral  conductors. 
We  had  no  idea  that  Mendelssohn's  Hymn  of  Praise  could 
be  made  to  sound  positively  trivial  until  it  was  our  misfor- 
tune to  hear  it  under  the  auspices  of  a  thoroughly  senti- 
mental and  incompetent  conductor. 

But  the  perturbations  in  the  natural  effect  of  the  music 
which  come  from  the  listener  are  even  more  numerous  and 
perplexing.  They  proceed  chiefly  from  association  and 
memory.  If  one  is  by  the  death-bed  of  a  friend,  and  a 
band  passes  in  the  street  playing  a  cheerful  tune,  that  tune 
will  sound  even  more  sadly  than  a  really  mournful  air, 
which  might  serve  at  once  to  express  and  to  relieve  the 
deep  heaviness  of  the  heart.  An  unhappy  girl,  out  of  her 
mind  for  the  loss  of  her  lover,  singing  a  merry  song  to 
herself  in  a  madhouse,  will  make  the  joyous  melody  sound 
sad  enough — sad  as  the  raptures  of  an  imprisoned  skylark 
hanging  caged  in  the  London  streets.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  grave  tune  may,  in  like  manner,  be  fairly  perturbed  out 
of  all  sobriety ;  and,  as  we  have  shown  it  is  possible  to 
pass  from  gay  to  grave  in  the  lunatic  asylum,  so  we  may 
pass  from  grave  to  gay,  in  spite  of  our  best  intentions, 
upon  hearing  some  well-known  psalm-tune  intoned  through 
the  nose  by  an  ancient  schoolmaster  in  a  country  church, 
where  the  service  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  a  pitched 
battle  between  the  clergyman  and  the  clerk  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  silent  congregation,  and  where  the  said  school- 
master is,  for  some  unintelligible  reason,  occasionally  per- 


MEMORY.  99 

mitted  to  interrupt  the  duel  with  an  extraordinary  succes- 
sion of  sounds  supposed  to  represent  the  11 9th  Psalm.  In 
this  case,  however  grave  the  melody  may  really  be  in  it- 
self, it  will  be  undeniably  perturbed  by  an  unfortunate  as- 
sociation of  ideas  at  the  moment  when  it  reaches  the  ears 
of  the  judicious  hearer. 

The  strangest  phenomena  of  all  connected  with  musical 
35  perturbation  are  to  be  found  in  alliance  with  mem- 
Memory.  ory .  |jut  musjcai  sound  is  only  one  of  many  me- 
diums which  connect  us  vividly  with  the  past.  Scents 
have  a  remarkable  power  of  recalling  past  scenes.  Who 
has  not  got  memories  connected  with  otto  of  roses  or  the 
perfume  of  violets  ?  The  peculiar  combination  of  odors  to 
be  met  with  only  in  a  steam-boat  cabin  will  recall  to  some 
many  a  disastrous  passage  across  the  British  Channel.  To 
a  Londoner,  the  smell  of  a  tan-yard  or  tallow  manufactory 
will  certainly  be  associated  with  those  lines  of  railway  run- 
ning out  of  London  over  the  roofs  of  serried  houses  over- 
looking certain  odorous  yards — instantly  he  may  remem- 
ber his  holding  his  nose,  or  seizing  the  window-strap  to 
pull  up  the  window  of  the  railway  carriage.  The  odor  of 
tar  calls  up  many  a  watering-place  in  summer:  we  are  on 
the  pier  in  an  instant,  with  some  little  child,  perchance  now 
grown  up  or  dead  ;  the  fishing-smack  lies  alongside  lazily, 
smoke  issuing  from  a  pot  at  the  stern ;  a  sailor  sits  with 
a  pipe  in  his  mouth,  throwing  vegetable  parings  into  the 
black  kettle  for  the  nondescript  midday  meal ;  the  hot  sea 
beneath  a  blazing  sun  lies  almost  stagnant,  waiting  for  the 
turn  of  the  tide ;  the  white  cliffs  glimmer  along  the  coast 
— and  all  this  flashes  for  a  moment  before  the  mind's  eye 
as  we  chance  to  pass  over  a  piece  of  asphalt  pavement 
newly  laid  down,  and  smelling  faintly  of  pitch. 

The  sight  of  a  faded  flower  pressed  in  a  book  brings 


100  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

back,  with  a  little  shock  of  feeling,  the  hand  that  gathered 
it,  or  the  distant  hills  upon  which  it  once  bloomed  years 
ago.  The  touch  of  satin  or  velvet,  or  fine  hair,  is  also  ca- 
pable of  reviving  the  recollections  of  scenes,  and  places, 
and  persons.  But  for  freshness,  and  suddenness,  and  pow- 
er over  memory,  all  the  senses  must  yield  to  the  sense  of 
hearing.  Memory  is  the  great  perturber  of  musical  mean- 
ing. When  memory  is  concerned,  music  is  no  longer  it- 
self; it  ceases  to  have  any  proper  plane  of  feeling ;  it  SUP 
renders  itself  wholly,  with  all  its  rights,  to  memory,  to  be 
the  patient,  stern,  and  terrible  exponent  of  that  recording 
angel.  What  is  it  ?  Only  a  few  trivial  bars  of  an  old 
piano-forte  piece — "Murmures  du  Rhone,"  or  "Pluie  dea 
Perles."  The  drawing-room  window  is  open,  the  children 
are  playing  on  the  lawn,  the  warm  morning  air  is  charged 
with  the  scent  of  lilac  blossom.  Then  the  ring  at  the  bell, 
the  confusion  in  the  hall,  the  girl  at  the  piano  stops,  the 
door  opens,  and  one  is  lifted  in  dying  or  dead.  Years, 
years  ago !  but  passing  through  the  streets,  a  bar  or  two 
of  the  "  Murmures  du  Rhone"  brings  the  whole  scene  up 
before  the  girl,  now  no  longer  a  girl,  but  a  middle-aged 
woman,  looking  back  to  one  fatal  summer  morning.  The 
enthusiastic  old  men,  who  invariably  turned  up  in  force 
whenever  poor  Madame  Grisi  was  advertised  to  sing  in  her 
last  days,  seemed  always  deeply  affected.  Yet  it  could 
hardly  be  at  what  they  actually  heard — no,  the  few  notes 
recalled  the  most  superb  soprano  of  the  age  in  her  best 
days  ;  recalled,  also,  the  scenes  of  youth  forever  faded  out, 
and  the  lights  of  youth  quenched  in  the  gray  mists  of  the 
dull  declining  years.  It  was  worth  any  money  to  hear 
even  the  hollow  echo  of  a  voice  which  had  power  to  bring 
back,  if  only  for  a  moment,  the  "  tender  grace  of  a  day  that 
was  dead." 


MUSICAL  QUOTATION.  101 

Composers,  by  re-treating,  quoting,  or  paraphrasing  well- 
36.        known  airs  and  harmonic  sequences,  might  have 

Musical  .      . 

Quotation,  made  much  more  use  of  memory  and  association 
than  they  have.  Schumann  has  shown  us  what  might  be 
done  in  this  way  by  the  amazing  effect  produced  in  his 
song  "  The  Two  Grenadiers,"  by  the  introduction  of  the 
"  Marseillaise."  The  words  of  this  wonderful  little  song 
of  Heinrich  Heine's  are  intended,  like  the  music,  to  express 
that  peculiar  type  of  character  in  the  French  army  called 
into  existence  by  the  genius  of  the  first  Napoleon. 

The  disastrous  campaign  in  Russia  is  over.  The  great 
Emperor  has  been  taken  captive.  Two  French  grenadiers, 
wearied,  dispirited,  one  of  them  suffering  from  a  deadly 
wound,  approach  the  German  frontier.  The  same  desolate 
feeling  has  taken  possession  of  both,  and  the  veterans  are 
moved  to  tears  as  they  think  over  the  humiliation  of 
France,  and  the  defeat  of  their  Emperor,  who  is  dearer  to 
them  than  life  itself.  Then  up  speaks  the  wounded  war- 
rior to  his  companion.  "  Friend,  when  I  am  dead,  bury  me 
in  my  native  France,  with  my  cross  of  honor  on  my  breast, 
and  my  musket  in  my  hand,  and  lay  my  good  sword  by 
my  side."  Up  to  this  point  the  melody  has  been  in  the 
minor  key.  A  slow,  dreary,  and  dirge-like  stave ;  but  as 
the  old  soldier  declares  his  belief  that  he  will  rise  once 
more  and  fight  when  he  hears  the  Emperor  walk  over  his 
grave  amid  the  tramp  of  horsemen  and  the  roar  of  cannon, 
the  minor  breaks  into  a  truly  ghostly  form  of  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise." It  rolls  forth  in  the  major  key,  but  is  not  car« 
ried  through,  and  is  brought  to  an  abrupt  close  with  five 
solemn  bars  of  chords  in  adagio,  upon  which  the  smoke  of 
the  battle  seems  to  sweep  into  the  distance  as  the  vision 
of  the  phantom  host  fades  out  upon  the  wide  plain,  with 
its  lonely  green  mounds  and  mouldering  wooden  crosses. 


102  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

The  emotional  force  in  women  is  usually  stronger,  and 
37.        always  more  delicate,  than  in  men.     Their  consti- 

Women  J 

and  Music,  tutions  are  like  those  fine  violins  which  vibrate  to 
the  lightest  touch.  Women  are  the  great  listeners,  not 
only  to  eloquence,  but  also  to  music.  The  wind  has  swept 
many  an  ^Eolian  lyre,  but  never  such  a  sensitive  harp  as 
a  woman's  soul.  In  listening  to  music,  her  face  is  often 
lighted  up  with  tenderness,  with  mirth,  or  with  the  simple 
expansiveness  of  intense  pleasure.  Her  attitude  changes 
unconsciously  with  the  truest,  because  the  most  natural, 
dramatic  feeling.  At  times  she  is  shaken  and  melts  into 
tears,  as  the  flowers  stand  and  shake  when  the  wind  blows 
upon  them  and  the  drops  of  rain  fall  off.  The  woman's 
temperament  is  naturally  artistic,  not  in  a  creative,  but  in 
a  receptive  sense.  A  woman  seldom  writes  good  music, 
never  great  music ;  and,  strange  to  say,  many  of  the  best 
singers  have  been  incapable  of  giving  even  a  good  musical 
reading  to  the  songs  in  which  they  have  been  most  famous. 
It  was  rumored  that  Madame  Grisi  had  to  be  taught  all 
her  songs,  and  became  great  by  her  wonderful  power  of 
appropriating  suggestions  of  pathos  and  expression  which 
she  was  incapable  of  originating  herself.  Madame  Mali- 
bran  had  a  great  dash  of  original  genius,  and  seldom  sang 
a  song  twice  in  the  same  way.  Most  women  reflect  with 
astonishing  ease,  and  it  has  often  been  remarked  that  they 
have  more  perception  than  thought,  more  passion  than 
judgment,  more  generosity  than  justice,  and  more  religious 
sentiment  than  moral  taste. 

Many  a  woman,  though  capable  of  so  much,  is  frequent- 
ly called  upon  in  the  best  years  of  her  life  to  do  but  little, 
but  at  all  times  society  imposes  upon  her  a  strict  reticence 
as  to  her  real  feelings.  What  is  she  to  do  with  the  weary 
hours,  with  the  days  full  of  the  intolerable  sunshine,  and 
the  nights  full  of  the  pitiless  stars  ?  Her  village  duties  or 


DREAM-LIPS.  103 

town  visits  are  done.  Perchance  neither  have  any  attrac« 
tions  for  her.  She  has  read  till  her  head  aches ;  but  all  the 
reading  leads  to  nothing.  She  has  worked  till  her  fingers 
ache ;  but  what  is  the  work  good  for  when  it  is  done  ?  To 
set  women  to  do  the  things  which  some  people  suppose  are 
the  only  things  fit  for  them  to  do,  is  often  like  setting  the 
steam-hammer  to  knock  pins  into  a  board.  The  skillful 
and  ingenious  operation  leaves  them  dissatisfied  or  listless, 
or  makes  them,  by  a  kind  of  reaction,  frivolous,  wicked,  and 
exaggerated  caricatures  of  what  God  intended  them  to  be. 
Some  outlet  is  wanted.  Control  is  good,  but  at  a  certain 
point  control  becomes  something  very  much  like  paralysis. 
The  steam-hammer,  as  it  contemplates  the  everlasting  pin's 
head,  can  not  help  feeling  that  if  some  day,  when  the  steam 
was  on,  it  might  give  one  good  smashing  blow,  it  would 
feel  all  the  better  for  it.  To  women — and  how  many  thou» 
sands  are  there  in  our  placid  modern  drawing-rooms ! — • 
who  feel  like  this,  music  comes  with  a  power  of  relief  and 
a  gentle  grace  of  ministration  little  short  of  supernatural. 

That  girl  who  sings  to  herself  her  favorite  songs  of  Schu- 

33         bert,  Mendelssohn,  or  Schumann,  sings  more  than 

Dream-life.  a  gong .  jt  jg  ker  OWQ  pjajnt  of  suffering  floating 

away  on  the  wings  of  melody.  That  poor  lonely  little  sor- 
rower, hardly  more  than  a  child,  who  sits  dreaming  at  her 
piano,  while  her  fingers,  caressing  the  deliciously  cool  ivory 
keys,  glide  through  a  weird  nocturno  of  Chopin,  is  playing 
no  mere  study  or  set  piece.  Ah  !  what  heavy  burden  seems 
lifted  up,  and  borne  away  in  the  dusk  ?  Her  eyes  are  half 
closed — her  heart  is  far  away ;  she  dreams  a  dream  as  the 
long,  yellow  light  fades  in  the  west,  and  the  wet  vine-leaves 
tremble  outside  to  the  nestling  birds ;  the  angel  of  music 
has  come  down ;  she  has  poured  into  his  ear  the  tale  which 
she  will  confide  to  no  one  else,  and  the  "  restless,  unsatisfied 


104  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

longing"  has  passed;  for  one  sweet  moment  the  cup  of  life 
seems  full — she  raises  it  to  her  trembling  lips.  What  if  it 
is  only  a  dream — a  dream  of  comfort  sent  by  music  ?  Who 
will  say  she  is  not  the  better  for  it  ?  She  has  been  taken 
away  from  the  commonplaceness  and  dullness  of  life — from 
the  old  books  in  the  study,  and  the  familiar  faces  in  the 
school-room,  and  the  people  in  the  streets ;  she  has  been 
alone  with  herself,  but  not  fretting  or  brooding — alone 
with  herself  and  the  minstrel  spirit.  Blessed  recreation, 
that  brings  back  freshness  to  the  tired  life  and  buoyancy 
to  the  heavy  heart !  Happy  rain  of  tears  and  stormy  wind 
of  sighs  sweeping  the  sky  clear,  and  showing  once  more 
the  deep  blue  heaven  of  the  soul  beyond !  Let  no  one  say 
that  the  moral  effects  of  music  are  small  or  insignificant. 
That  domestic  and  long-suffering  instrument,  the  cottage 
piano,  has  probably  done  more  to  sweeten  existence,  and 
bring  peace  and  happiness  to  families  in  general,  and  to 
young  women  in  particular,  than  all  the  homilies  on  the 
domestic  virtues  ever  yet  penned. 

IX. 

THE  social  effects  of  music  would  be  a  very  interesting 
as.         subiect  of  discussion,  but  they  lie  a  little  out- 

Sacred  Music.  J  J 

The  oratario.  side  the  purpose  of  our  present  article.  In  writ- 
ing on  a  subject  so  extremely  fertile  as  music,  it  is  almost 
impossible  not  to  diverge  at  times  into  pleasant  by-ways 
and  unexplored  paths.  I  have  now  only  space  for  a  few 
remarks  on  the  moral  effects  of  sacred  music  upon  the  list- 
ener. Those  who  attend  the  performances  of  the  Sacred 
Harmonic  Society  at  Exeter  Hall,  and  the  other  great  mu- 
sical festivals  in  England,  need  not  be  told  that  almost  all 
the  greatest  composers  have  found,  in  the  sacred  cantata 
or  oratorio,  a  form  of  art  capable  of  expressing  the  noblest 
progressions  of  the  religious  sentiment  in  the  highest  planes 


SACRED  MUSIC.— THE  ORATORIO.  1Q5 

of  emotion.  Those  who  have  been  familiar  with  the  Bible 
from  childhood  are  apt  to  grow  insensible  to  the  majestic 
beauty  of  its  style,  to  the  frequently  inspired  level  of  its 
ideas,  and  the  subtle  charm  of  its  diction.  Some  day  they 
may  chance  suddenly  to  read  a  passage  of  it  in  French  or 
German,  and  the  simple  novelty  of  form  will  wonderfully 
arrest  their  attention  and  kindle  their  emotion.  But  this 
is  nothing  compared  with  the  effect  which  is  produced  by 
arranging  the  magnificent  episodes  of  Scripture  in  a  dra- 
matic— not  operatic — form,  and  translating  their  emotional 
significance  into  the  universal  language  of  music.  In  the 
oratorio,  unlike  the  opera,  there  is  nothing  absurd  or  outre. 
The  fact  of  Elijah  standing  before  us  in  a  well-trimmed 
mustache  and  clean  kid  gloves  does  not  in  the  least  shock 
our  sense  of  propriety,  because  no  impersonation  is  attempt- 
ed. The  singers  are  there,  not  to  personate  character,  but 
to  help  us  to  realize  the  force  and  procession  of  certain  emo- 
tions through  which  the  characters  in  the  sacred  drama  are 
supposed  to  pass.  By  doing  this,  and  no  more,  we  attempt 
the  possible,  and  succeed.  A  good  deal  depends  upon  the 
libretto.  Mendelssohn  was  himself  ever  a  loving  and  rev- 
erent student  of  the  Bible.  He  selected  and  arranged  in 
great  measure  the  words  of  his  own  oratorios ;  and  so  ad- 
mirably has  he  entered  into  the  spirit  of  his  work,  that  it 
is  difficult  to  listen  to  the  Elijah  or  St.  Paul,  with  the  words 
before  us,  without  each  time  receiving  some  new  impres- 
sion of  the  depth  and  sublimity  of  those  characters,  whose 
figures  at  this  distance  of  time  stand  out  prominently 
among  all  the  prophets  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
I  have  written  so  much  elsewhere  upon  oratorios,  that  I 
willingly,  without  further  preamble,  pass  on  to  congrega- 
tional singing. 


106  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AXD  MORALS. 

In  all  times  men  and  women  have  shown  a  strong  dis 
40.          position  to  express  their  praises  and  lamenta- 

Congregation-     ....  , 

tious  by  what  lor  some   better  term  may  be 


called  a  kind  of  howling  or  wailing.  This  method  may 
not  be  thought  very  musical  or  hymn-like.  Nevertheless, 
all  such  vocal  expressions  are  actual  attempts  to  utter 
deep  feeling  through  appropriate  channels  of  sound.  When 
properly  disciplined  and  elaborated,  that  mode  of  utter- 
ance becomes  devotional  and  congregational  singing.  The 
Lollards,  who,  according  to  some,  took  their  name  from 
lullen,  "  to  sing,"  found  in  hymn  tunes  and  chants  a  great 
medium  for  expressing  the  rush  of  a  new  religious  life 
upon  their  spirits,  and  within  the  last  hundred  years  the 
Methodist  hymns  have  served  a  like  purpose.  Xo  doubt, 
upon  entering  a  chapel  where  the  congregation  were  sing- 
ing, heart  and  soul,  some  easily-learned  and  well-known 
hymn,  the  hearer  was  liable  to  be  caught  by  the  devotion- 
al impetuosity  thus  expressed  through  musical  sound  ;  and, 
indeed,  no  greater  bond  of  worship  could  be  devised  than 
hymn  tunes  suited  to  the  capacities  and  tastes  of  the  peo- 
ple. Mr.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  in  his  own  peculiar  vein, 
has  lately  preached  a  very  eloquent  sermon  to  his  congre- 
gation upon  this  subject,  and  we  need  make  no  apology 
for  presenting  our  readers  with  the  following  extract  to 
the  point  : 

"  Singing  is  that  natural  method  by  which  thoughts  are  reduced  to  feel- 
ing, more  easily,  more  surely,  and  more  universally  than  by  any  other. 
You  are  conscious  when  you  go  to  an  earnest  meeting,  for  instance,  that, 
while  hymns  are  being  sung  and  you  listen  to  them,  your  heart  is,  as  it 
were,  loosened,  and  there  comes  out  of  those  hymns  to  you  a  realizatiop 
of  the  truth  such  as  you  never  had  before.  There  is  a  pleading  element, 
there  is  a  sense  of  humiliation  of  heart,  there  is  a  poignant  realization  of 
sin  and  its  guiltiness,  there  is  a  yearning  for  a  brighter  life  in  a  hymn 
which  you  do  not  find  in  your  closet  ;  and.  in  singing,  you  come  into  sym- 
pathy with  the  truth  as  you  perhaps  never  do  under  the  preaching  of  a 


SLOW  CHURCH.  107 

discourse.  There  is  a  provision  made  in  singing  for  the  development  of 
almost  every  phase  of  Christian  experience.  Singing  has  also  a  wonder- 
ful effect  upon  thoss  feelings  which  we  wish  to  restrain.  All  are  not  alike 
susceptible,  but  all  are  susceptible  to  some  extent.  I  speak  with  emphasis 
on  this  point,  because  I  am  peculiarly  sensitive  to  singing,  and  because  I 
owe  so  much  to  it.  How  many  times  have  I  come  into  the  church  on 
Sunday  morning  jaded  and  somewhat  desponding,  saddened  at  any  rate, 
and  before  the  organ  voluntary  was  completed,  undergone  a  change  as 
great  as  though  I  had  been  taken  out  of  January  and  been  plumped  down 
in  the  middle  of  May,  with  spring  blossoms  on  every  hand !  How  many, 
many  times  have  I  been  lifted  out  of  a  depressed  state  of  mind  into  a 
cheerful  mood  by  the  singing  before  I  began  to  preach !  How  often,  in 
looking  forward  to  the  Friday-night  meeting,  has  my  prevailing  thought 
been,  not  of  what  I  was  going  to  say,  but  of  the  hymns  that  would  be 
sung!  My  prayer-meeting  consists  largely  of  the  singing  of  hymns  which 
are  full  of  prayings,  and  my  predominant  thought  in  connection  with  our 
Friday-night  gatherings  is,  '  Oh,  that  sweet,  joyful  singing ! ' " 

As  faith  in  the  great  evangelical  movement  cooled,  the 
41  hearty  congregational  singing  also  began  to  die 
Slow  church.  down  in  the  church  of  England,  and  in  fashion- 
able chapels  the  voices  of  the  people  were  represented  by 
a  few  careless  professional  ladies  and  gentlemen,  who  show- 
ed themselves  off  to  considerable  advantage  in  a  private 
box,  situated  in  the  west  gallery,  in  front  of  the  organ. 
There  the  ladies  were  wont  to  fan  themselves  and  flirt  dur- 
ing the  prayers,  and  there  the  gentlemen  "  made  up"  their 
"  little  books,"  or  sat  yawning  through  the  sermon.  The 
congregation  being  mostly  asleep,  and  the  clergyman  also 
somewhat  comatose,  it  seemed  for  some  time  unlikely  that 
the  above  odious  performance  would  give  way  to  any 
thing  a  shade  less  irreverent,  when  lo !  the  great  High- 
Church  movement  in  a  very  few  years  pulled  the  wheezy 
organs  out  of  their  dingy  nooks,  and  swept  half  the  old 
musical  boxes  in  the  land  from  our  churches,  concert  sing- 
ers and  all. 


108  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MORALS. 

Then  arose  the  age  of  white  surplices,  and  new  hymn 
42.        tunes,  and  decent  versicles  and  anthems.    In  short, 

Choir  Ref-  .  ' 

ormation.  a  cathedral  service  soon  became  iashionable  all 
over  England,  not  in  High-churches  only,  but  even  in  Low 
and  Broad  churches.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  their 
doctrines,  the  High-Church  party  have  stood  up  for  the 
aesthetic  element  in  devotion,  and  by  introducing  a  respect- 
able amount  of  ritual,  with  good  music,  they  have  shown 
us  how  it  was  possible  to  be  emotional  without  being  vul- 
gar. The  charge  brought  against  the  High-Church  sing- 
ing is  that  it  is  uncongregational,  and  this  is  held  to  be  a 
fatal  objection,  especially  to  anthems.  The  objection  is 
only  one  more  proof  of  how  much  the  English  people  have 
still  to  learn  concerning  the  real  functions  of  music.  There 
is  a  grace  of  hearing  as  well  as  a  grace  of  singing ;  there 
is  a  passive  as  well  as  an  active  side  of  worship.  In  every 
congregation  there  must  be  some  who  can  not  join  even  in 
the  simplest  tune.  Some  are  too  old,  some  have  no  voices, 
others  have  no  ear  for  music ;  but  it  would  be  a  great  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  all  who  are  thus  reduced  to  the  state 
of  listeners  get  nothing  at  all  out  of  the  singing.  If  we 
take  note  of  old  and  devout  worshipers  as  some  familiar 
hymn  is  being  sung,  we  shall  see  their  faces  lighten  up  and 
their  heads  move  in  unconscious  sympathy,  and  we  shall 
know  that,  although  their  lips  are  silent,  they  are  singing 
in  the  spirit.  One  day,  noticing  a  very  poor  and  aged 
woman  in  tears  during  the  service,  I  spoke  to  her  at  the 
close,  and  inquired  the  cause  of  her  grief.  "  Oh,  sir,"  she 
replied, "  that  blessed,  blessed  song  in  the  middle  of  the 
prayers !"  She  could  say  no  more ;  but  she  was  alluding 
to  an  anthem  by  Professor  Sterndale  Bennett — "  O  Lord, 
thou  hast  searched  me  out." 

The  function  of  anthems  is  no  doubt  quite  different  from 
that  of  psalms  or  hymns.     It  is  greatly  to  be  wished  that 


USE  OF  ANTHEMS  AND  VOLUNTARIES.  JQ9 

the  congregation  would  never  attempt  to  join  in  the  an- 
them— not  even  in  the  chorus,  strong  as  the  temptation 
may  sometimes  be.  Above  all,  let  not  people  with  musi- 
cal ears  sing  fancy  parts  to  their  own  edification  and  the 
great  distress  of  their  fellow-worshipers.  The  strength  of 
the  congregation  during  the  anthem  is  emphatically  to  sit, 
or,  at  all  events,  to  stand,  still.  They  need  lose  nothing 
by  their  silence,  for,  rightly  understood,  it  may  be  quite  as 
blessed  a  thing  to  allow  music  to  flow  into  the  soul  as  to 
pour  forth  actively  songs  of  praise.  This  is  hardly  a  pop- 
ular view  of  the  subject.  In  every  church  where  an  an- 
them is  sung,  the  majority  of  the  congregation  seems  to 
belong  to  one  of  two  classes — those  who  look  upon  the  an- 
them as  an  unwarrantable  interloper,  and  those  who  re- 
gard it  simply  in  the  light  of  a  show-off"  for  the  choir. 
Need  we  observe  that  neither  of  these  two  views  is  the 
correct  one  ? 

The  worshiper  has  for  some  time  been  engaged  in  the 
43  service  of  active  prayer  and  praise,  when  there 
ttilfimfand"  comes  "  in  choirs  and  places  where  they  sing"  a 
voluntaries.  p&m^  and  «Here  followeth  the  anthem."  The 
active  phase  of  devotion  is  exchanged  for  the  passive  at 
the  moment  when  the  powers  of  congregational  attention 
begin  to  fail,  and  physical  energy  is  waxing  a  little  faint. 
The  emotions  which  we  have  just  been  connecting  in  pray- 
er with  solemn,  perhaps  even  harrowing,  thoughts — the 
feelings  we  have  been  laboring  to  express  with  a  certain 
strained  and  fatiguing  mental  effort — in  short,  all  burden- 
some activity,  is  suddenly  suspended,  and  the  spirit,  raised 
into  the  atmosphere  of  devotion,  remains  passive,  in  order 
that  it  may  be  recruited,  by  having  its  weight  of  feeling 
lifted  up  and  its  emotion  expressed  for  it,  through  music  in 
harmony  with  its  inner  consciousness.  It  is  as  though  a 


110  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MOMALS. 

traveler  grown  weary  in  a  winter's  walk  were  suddenly  to 
be  lifted  up  and  borne  along  upon  wings  without  word  or 
action  of  his  own,  what  time  the  land  grew  warm  with  sun- 
light, the  air  scented  with  flowers  and  full  of  angel  voices. 
When  the  times  of  refreshing  are  past  he  finds  himself 
again  upon  the  earth ;  but  all  his  fatigue  has  vanished, 
and  he  is  now  able  to  go  on  his  journey  with  renewed  life, 
and  "  compassed  about  with  songs  of  rejoicing."  When 
the  hearing  of  voluntaries  and  anthems  is  thus  regarded  as 
part  of  the  needful  solace  and  recreation  of  the  religious 
life,  we  shall,  no  doubt,  find  music  much  more  widely  and 
intelligently  used  in  our  churches  than  it  is  at  present. 

Musically  speaking,  there  is   as  yet  in  the  Reformed 
44.        churches  nothing  approaching  the  grandeur  of 

Need  of  Ar- 
tistic Unity,  the  great  Roman  Catholic  Masses,  where  we  have 

a  mind  like  that  of  Mozart  or  Beethoven  steadily  working 
out,  in  strains  of  incomparable  depth  and  pathos,  a  great 
connected  series  of  thoughts,  embodying  all  the  varied 
phases  of  religious  emotion.  Indeed,  the  notion  that  a  re- 
ligious service  may  be  wrought  out  with  the  force  and 
majesty  of  a  great  work  of  art,  having  its  various  parts 
welded  into  a  powerful  and  satisfactory  unity  by  the  agen- 
cy of  music,  is  a  conception  which  has  evidently  not  yet 
reached  this  isle  of  the  Protestant  Gentiles.  Yet  no  relig- 
ious service  can  with  impunity  violate,  in  however  small  a 
degree,  the  great  laws  of  beauty,  fitness,  and  order  which 
are  involved  in  the  conception  of  a  Mass ;  nor  is  it  impos- 
sible, without  making  the  music  incessant  throughout  the 
service,  to  arrange  our  own  liturgy  in  such  an  order,  and 
so  to  incorporate  the  musical  element  as  to  sustain  the  at- 
tention of  the  congregation,  and  produce  a  unity  of  effect 
far  greater  than  is  at  present  at  all  usual.  In  some  High- 
churches  we  find  a  glimmering  of  what  a  musical  service 


SEED  OF  ARTISTIC  UNITY.  \\\ 

might  and  ought  to  be ;  but,  what  with  unbending  medi- 
aevalism  and  rigid  ecclesiastical  prejudices,  we  must  not 
hope  for  any  thing  like  a  good  type  of  congregational 
service  from  that  quarter.  On  the  other  hand,  any  thing 
more  disjointed  and  slovenly  than  the  ordinary  brown- 
colored  sort  of  Church  service  still  prevalent  hi  most  coun- 
try churches  and  London  chapels  can  hardly  be  conceived. 
Have  people  no  ears — do  they  not  care  what  is  piped  and 
what  is  harped — is  their  attention  never  exhausted — have 
they  no  idea  of  the  strain  which  the  human  mind  is  con- 
structed to  bear — that  they  can  listen  for  an  hour  to  a  na- 
sal droning  of  the  prayers,  interlarded  here  with  a  chant, 
the  very  memory  of  which  makes  one  yawn,  and  there 
with  some  hymn  tune,  sung  at  a  pace  compared  to  which 
adagio  might  be  called  fast  ?  There  is  a  hopeless  want  of 
decision  and  energy  in  the  ordinary  conduct  of  our  Church 
prayers.  We  do  not  want  rapidity  so  much  as  a  definite 
conception  of  the  emotional  fabric  of  the  whole  ;  and  here 
is  the  point  where  music  might  come  to  our  assistance,  by 
defining  the  pauses  and  divisions  which  the  life  and  inter- 
est of  the  whole  service  demands.  Every  orator,  every 
singer,  every  soloist,  and  every  conductor  will  readily  un- 
derstand what  I  mean.  He  who  arranges  a  religious  serv- 
ice, if  he  wishes  it  to  secure  the  attention  and  minister  to 
the  edification  of  the  people,  should  place  himself  some 
what  in  the  position  of  an  orchestral  conductor ;  it  is  his 
business  to  arrange  every  detail  of  the  proceedings.  The 
exact  moment  at  which  the  opening  hymn  is  sung,  the 
general  impulse  and  feeling  of  the  hymn,  should  be  im- 
pressed upon  the  choir ;  the  organist  should  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  the  music,  and  understand  its  place  and  function 
in  the  service ;  he  should  be  always  on  the  watch ;  there 
should  be  no  unintentional  delays  in  giving  out  the  hymns 
— no  unsettled  pauses  before  the  hymn  is  commenced; 


112  MUSIC,  EMOTION,  AND  MOtiALS. 

the  hymns,  responses,  canticles,  anthems,  and  voluntaries 
should  succeed  one  another  in  such  a  succession  and  style 
as  to  relieve  one  another,  each  fitting  into  its  place  at  the 
nick  of  time,  never  dragging,  never  jolting,  not  balking  the 
attention,  or  executed  in  so  aimless  a  manner  as  to  allow 
the  congregation  to  grow  listless.  But  to  accomplish  all 
this,  or  a  tithe  of  it,  there  must  be  true  art  feeling,  and 
true  religious  feeling,  and  true  musical  taste ;  and  although 
we  are  inclined  to  admit  that  the  English  are  on  the  whole 
a  Religious  People,  we  arrive  at  the  sad  conviction  that, 
however  improving  and  improvable,  the  English  are  not, 
as  a  nation,  an  artistic  people,  and  the  English  are  not  a 
Musical  People. 


END    OF   THE    FIRST   BOOK. 


Seconb  Book. 
BIOGRAPHICAL. 

HANDEL,   GLUCK,   HAYDN,   SCHUBERT, 

CHOPIN,  MOZART.  BEETHOVEN, 

AND  MENDELSSOHN. 


Seronlr  Book. 


FROM 


AMBROSE    TO    HANDEL. 


i. 

WE  sometimes  hear  music  called  the  universal  language. 
45.          That  will  be  true  some  day.     Civilized  music 

First  and  Sec- 
ond Periods,     must  ultimately  triumph  over  every  other  kind 

of  music,  because  it  is  based  upon  natural  principles  dis- 
covered once  and  forever,  and  capable  of  being  universally 
applied  and  understood.  But  at  present  to  speak  of  mu- 
sic, ancient  and  modern,  savage  and  scientific,  as  a  univer- 
sal language,  is  only  true  in  a  limited  sense.  There  is 
probably  no  nation  upon  earth  so  devoid  of  tonal  sensibil- 
ity as  to  be  quite  callous  to  the  attraction,  or  even  fascina- 
tion, of  sounds  produced  artificially  with  a  view  to  excite 
or  to  relieve  emotion.  If  we  like  to  call  any  such  medley 
of  sounds  music,  of  course  we  are  at  liberty  to  do  so.  The 
rudest  howl  of  the  savage  as  he  dances  round  his  bonfire, 
in  the  pages  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe"  or  elsewhere,  the  wild- 
est monody  of  the  Eastern  donkey-driver,  or  the  most  ex- 
asperating scrape  of  a  Japanese  fiddle,  is  essentially  a  kind 
of  music. 


116  INTROD  UCTION  TO  MODERN  MUSIC. 

Sound,  as  an  emotional  vehicle,  is  universal — in  the  same 
way  that  speech  is  universal  But  if  we  mean  by  univer- 
sal that  every  kind  of  music  possesses  the  property  of  be- 
ing every  where  equally  intelligible,  that  is  simply  not  the 
case.  The  Indian  who  sits  down  to  yell  for  two  hours  and 
beat  the  tom-tom  may  possibly  soothe  the  savage  mind, 
but  he  drives  the  European  mad.  Mr.  Hullah,  to  whose 
excellent  lectures  we  are  indebted  for  much  of  the  follow- 
ing essay,  tells  us  of  an  Arabian  artist  whose  conception 
of  the  scale  on  his  eoud,  or  lute,  was  not  only  different 
from  ours,  but  who  refused  to  tolerate  the  order  of  tones 
and  semitones  adopted  in  our  major  and  minor.  The  mu- 
sic of  the  savage  is  not  as  our  music,  neither  do  we  de- 
light in  the  music  of  the  past — by  which  I  mean  the  mu- 
sic of  the  ancients  and  the  music  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
monuments,  the  paintings,  the  literature  of  the  past  are 
still  eloquent.  We  still  admire  Westminster  Abbey,  Notre 
Dame  de  Chartres,  or  the  frescoes  at  Padua.  We  are  still 
warmed  by  the  rough  geniality  of  Chaucer,  and  the  lines 
of  Petrarch  and  Dante  are  woven  like  golden  threads  into 
the  fabric  of  our  conversation  and  literature ;  but  when 
we  are  asked  to  sit  down  with  these  worthies  and  hear  a 
little  music,  we  can  not  pretend  to  be  very  anxious  to  do 
so :  there  might  have  been  a  certain  charm  about  the  wild 
inspirations  of  the  Trouv£res,\)ut  not  sufficient  to  atone  for 
the  want  of  form  and  the  fixed  tonality  of  modern  melo- 
dy ;  while  at  church  the  monks  would  treat  you  to  a  kind 
of  harmony,  consisting  of  one  bourdon  in  the  bass,  and  a 
few  consecutive  fifths  and  octaves  to  relieve  the  ear !  So 
bad  must  have  been  these  effects,  that  many  writers  have 
maintained  that  the  art  of  reading  the  old  music  is  lost, 
and  that  sharps,  flats,  and  rhythm  were  really  used  long 
before  they  were  indicated  in  the  notation. 

Nor  is  the  music  of  the  Old  World  more  satisfactory. 


FIRST  AND  SECOND  PERIODS.  117 

We  may,  indeed,  trace  music  from  India  to  Egypt,  from 
Egypt  to  Judaea,  from  Judaea  to  Greece ;  but  the  pre-Gre- 
cian  period  is  utterly  barren,  and  the  Grecian  period,  with 
its  better-understood  octave  and  monotone  notation,  is 
dullness  itself.  The  attempts  of  the  Old  World,  B.C.,  in- 
genious and  complicated  as  some  of  them  were,  may  be 
safely  dismissed  as  clumsy  and  unsuccessful ;  they  are  not 
worth  the  study  that  has  been  bestowed  upon  them.  Mr. 
Hullah  reckons  the  First  Period  of  music  from  370  A.D.  to 
1400.  Until  about  the  year  700  A.D.  people  did  not  even 
etumble  in  the  right  direction,  and  not  until  1400  was  that 
glorious  vista  opened  up,  at  whose  distant  extremity  sat 
the  crowned  genius  of  Modern  Music  presiding  over  the 
immortal  tone-poetry  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  eight- 
eenth, and  nineteenth  centuries.  However,  it  would  be  un- 
fair, even  in  the  most  cursory  sketch,  not  to  notice  the 
attempts  made  by  St.  Ambrose  of  Milan  (elected  374)  to 
adapt  a  few  of  the  Greek  scales  for  the  use  of  the  Church. 
Much  of  his  work  was  afterward  undone  by  the  stupidity 
of  his  followers,  until  Gregory  the  Great  (elected  590)  re- 
vived what  could  be  found  of  the  Ambrosian  system,  add- 
ed four  new  scales,  and  issued  an  antiphonary,  or  author- 
ized book  of  ecclesiastical  music. 

The  monk  Hucbald,  of  St.  Armand,  diocese  of  Tournay, 
who  died  in  932,  has  collected  and  systematized  the  best 
music  current  in  his  day.  The  harmony  then  admired 
must  have  resembled  the  mixture-stop  of  our  organs  play- 
ed alone.  Guido  of  Arezzo  (1020)  and  Franco  of  Cologne 
(about  1200 — some  writers  place  him  much  earlier)  are  the 
only  other  names  worth  mentioning  at  this  early  period. 
The  labors  of  the  first  culminated  in  the  rise  of  descant, 
i.  e.,  the  combination  of  sounds  of  unequal  length,  or  "  mu- 
sic in  which  two  or  more  sounds  succeed  each  other  while 
one  equal  to  them  in  length  was  sustained"  (Hullah}  ;  the 


118  INTROD  UCTION  TO  MODERN  MUSIC. 

labors  of  Franco  may  be  connected  with  a  better  system 
of  musical  notation,  the  introduction  of  sharps  and  flats, 
and  the  cantus  mensurabilis,  or  division  of  music  into  bars. 
Both  were  voluminous  authors ;  to  the  first,  Guido,  un- 
doubtedly belongs  the  honor  of  popularizing  the  study  of 
music  by  the  invention  of  a  simple  method  of  instruction. 
In  his  day  there  were  very  few  organs,  and  a  great  dearth 
of  other  instruments.  Thus  the  music -master  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  directing  the  voice  and  forming  the 
musical  ear ;  and,  indeed,  apart  from  his  immediate  pres- 
ence, little  practice  or  progress  could  be  made  by  the  pu- 
pil. Guido  used  a  simple  instrument,  called  a  monochord, 
which  had  letters  written  on  a  finger-board  corresponding 
to  definite  notes ;  the  said  notes  being  produced  by  shift- 
ing a  movable  bridge  up  and  down  the  letters,  just  as  the 
finger  is  shifted  up  and  down  the  frets  of  a  guitar.  No 
doubt,  also,  Guido  taught  all  that  was  then  known  of  the 
art,  and  formulated  a  great  deal  which  he  is  erroneously 
supposed  to  have  invented. 

The  Second  Period  (1400-1600)  is  marked  toward  its 
close  by  a  definite  system  of  "  tonality,"  or  arrangement 
of  the  scale.  The  name  of  Josquin  des  Pres  may  be  con- 
nected with  its  rise  and  progress,  while  France  and  Bel- 
gium divide  between  them  the  honors  of  its  early  develop- 
ment. About  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Gallo- 
Belgian  was  completely  absorbed  into  the  Italian  school, 
and  as  Josquin  des  Pres  is  the  foundation,  so  Palestrina  is 
the  crown  of  the  Second  Period. 

The  Third  Period  (1600-1750),  or  the  transition,  bridges 
«.      over  the  great  gulf  between  the  second  and  fourth 

Third 

Period,  periods,  or  between  the   ancient   and  the   modern 
music. 
The  Third,  or  Transition  Period,  begins  with  the  close  of 


THIRD  PERIOD.  119 

the  sixteenth  century.  The  old  tonality  was  the  great  ob- 
stacle to  all  progress.  A  scale  of  notes  arranged  on  a  sim- 
ple and  uniform  system  was  the  remedy.  The  old  masters 
would  begin  a  scale  any  where  in  the  series,  without  writ- 
ing flats  or  sharps  to  make  the  semitones  fall  in  the  same 
places,  whatever  the  key  or  mode.  The  change  from  such 
a  system  to  our  simple  major  and  minor,  with  its  uniform 
arrangement  of  accidentals,  was  immense. 
[fc=:  This,  and  the  consequent  discovery  of  the 
perfect  cadence,  made  the  radical  differ- 
ence between  the  old  and  the  new  music. 
No  man  is  responsible  for  these  startling 
innovations,  but  most  of  them  are  attributed  to  Monte- 
verde  (1570).  At  all  events,  it  is  certain  that  about  this 
time  the  world  got  very  tired  of  the  old  forms.  And  no 
wonder ;  for  a  scientific  movement  in  music  was  worked 
out  like  an  equation  in  algebra,  and  was  necessarily  devoid 
of  either  life  or  expression.  The  wild  strains  of  the  wan- 
dering minstrels,  on  the  other  hand,  were  full  of  feeling, 
but  had  no  consistency  or  method.  In  short,  as  Mr.  Hul- 
lah  well  expressed  it, "  the  scholastic  music  had  no  art,  the 
popular  music  no  science." 

The  glory  of  the  Transition  Period  is  the  marriage  of 
Art  with  Science.  Science,  grim  and  ecclesiastical,  peep- 
ed forth  from  his  severe  cloister  and  beheld  the  wild  and 
beautiful  creature  singing  her  roundelays,  captivating  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  who  followed  her  in  crowds — detain- 
ed by  princes  to  sing  the  story  of  crusades  and  the  tri- 
umphs of  love — all  the  while  knowing  nothing  and  caring 
nothing  for  the  modes  "  authentic"  and  "plagal"  but  strik- 
ing the  harp  or  bandoline  to  the  wild  and  irregular  rhythm 
of  fancy  or  passion ;  and  Science,  greatly  shocked,  with- 
drew itself  from  so  frivolous  a  spectacle,  just  as  the  monks 
of  the  day  lived  apart  from  a  bad  world.  But  presently 


1 20  INTROD  UCTJON  TO  MODERN  MUSIC. 

the  grave  face  looked  out  once  more,  opened  a  window — 
a  door — stepped  forth  and  mingled  with  the  crowd,  just  as 
the  preaching  friars  came  forth,  until  the  line  between  the 
secular  and  the  religious  began  slowly  to  fade.  The  stern 
heart  of  Science  was  smitten  by  the  enchantress,  popular 
Art,  and  conceived  the  daring  plan  of  wooing  and  winning 
her  for  himself.  It  was  a  long  process ;  it  took  nearly  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  Science  was  so  dull  and  preju- 
diced ;  Art  was  so  impatient,  and  wild,  and  careless.  But 
the  first  advances  of  Science  were  favored  by  that  won- 
drous spring-tide  which  followed  the  winter  of  the  Middle 
Ages — the  Renaissance.  Emerging  from  the  cold  cell  into 
the  warm  air  and  sunlight  of  a  new  world,  Science  relaxed, 
cast  his  theories  to  the  winds,  sighed  for  natural  Art,  and 
raved  incoherently  about  the  "  musical  declamation  of  the 
Greeks."  Here,  then,  was  the  first  point  of  sympathy. 
Wild  enthusiasm  and  impatience  of  forms  was,  for  one  mo- 
ment, common  to  Science  and  Art,  and  that  was  the  mo- 
ment of  their  betrothal.  Immediately  afterward,  with  Ca- 
rissimi,  Science  recovered  the  lost  equilibrium,  but  Art  was 
captivated  by  the  strong  spirit,  and  the  perfect  marriage 
was  now  only  a  matter  of  time. 

Carissimi  (born  1585,  died  1672)  was  the  very  type  of 
*T.       The  Transition.     He  might  have  seen  Palestrina, 

Carisaimi. 

—Italy,  and  he  lived  to  hear  Corelli.  The  germs  of  every 
style  of  music  known  since  arose  during  his  long  and 
eventful  lifetime.  He  witnessed  the  bloom  and  gradual 
decay  of  the  madrigal  in  England  and  Germany ;  the  birth 
and  adolescence  of  the  musical  drama  in  France,  under 
Lulli ;  the  invention  of  the  oratorio  in  the  oratory  of  San 
Philippo  Neri,  at  Rome  ;  and,  lastly,  the  rise  and  progress 
of  instrumental  music  as  an  independent  branch  of  the  art. 
About  1659  Francisco  Pistocchi  established  his  great  school 


JOHN  D  UNSTABLE.— ENGLAND.  \  2 1 

of  Italian  singing  at  Bologna.  "Before  this,"  says  an  old 
writer,  '•  they  used  to  howl  like  wolves."  He  was  follow- 
ed, twenty  years  later,  by  Scarlatti,  at  Naples,  and  this  im- 
provement in  vocal  operatic  music  made  corresponding  de- 
mands upon  the  orchestra.  Between  1650  and  1750  flour- 
ished the  schools  of  the  great  violin  makers  near  Cremona, 
the  Amatis,  the  Guarnerii,  and  Stradiuarius,  and  with  them 
rose  at  once  the  dignity  and  importance  of  instrumental 
music.  Overtures,  sonatas,  quartets  began  to  be  written 
in  vast  quantities,  and  the  way  was  thus  rapidly  paved  for 
the  later  developments  of  the  modern  symphony.  Ger- 
many, meanwhile,  though  far  from  original,  had  not  been 
idle.  Deriving  her  inspiration  copiously  from  Italy,  she 
became,  during  the  seventeenth  century,  the  land  of  or- 
gans and  organists,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
showed  signs  of  independent  thought,  and  began  to  encour- 
age native  effort  in  such  men  as  Zachau  and  Keiser. 

But  we  must  now  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  place 
48.          which  England  holds  in  the  rise  and  progress 

John  Dunsta-  °  .  r 

bie.— England,  ofmusic.  The  gloomy  period  of  the  old  tonali- 
ty, £.  e.,  before  1600,  is  relieved  in  this  country  by  the  lus- 
tre of  one  great  name — John  Dunstable.  His  fame  was 
prodigious,  and  yet  his  own  age  could  hardly  have  under- 
stood him.  He  had  misgivings  about  the  prevalent  sys- 
tem of  timeless  music,  strange  anticipations  of  coming  har- 
monies, and  he  is  even  said  to  have  invented  counterpoint. 
But  toward  the  close  of  the  Second  Period  (1500-1600) 
was  born  a  real  English  school — a  school,  no  doubt,  which 
took  largely  from  others,  and,  owing  perhaps  to  our  insu- 
lar position,  gave  little  in  return,  but  a  school  which  could 
boast  of  Tallis,  Farrant,  Byrd,  and  Bevin  in  church  music; 
Morley,Ward,  Wilbye,  and  Weelkes  in  the  madrigal;  Bull 
equally  great  as  an  executant  and  a  composer;  Dow  land, 


122  -kVTJZ  OD  UCTION  TO  MODERN  MUSIC. 

the  friend  of  Shakspeare,  in  the  part-song ;  and,  last  in  the 
catalogue,  but  first  in  every  style  of  composition,  Orlando 
Gibbons.  Then  conies  a  blank.  The  old  traditions  were 
fairly  used  up ;  and  the  echoes  of  the  new  music,  with 
which  France  and  Italy  were  ringing,  had  not  yet  reached 
us.  The  civil  wars  seemed  to  paralyze  our  musical  inven- 
tion and  extinguish  our  enthusiasm.  In  Germany,  during 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  organs  and  organists  abounded, 
and  composers  were  busy  absorbing  all  the  new  influences. 
In  England,  under  similar  circumstances,  music  got  old  and 
dull ;  few  composed  and  played,  and  fewer  cared  to  listen. 

In  1660,  Pelham  Humphrey,  a  chorister  boy  in  the  roy- 

49.  al  choir  of  his  majesty  Charles  II.,  went  to  Paris, 
j-jjij «»  j 

Prance.  There  he  fell  in  with  the  new  opera  school  of  Lulli. 
He  immediately  placed  himself  under  the  great  French 
composer ;  and  the  result  was,  that  Master  Humphrey  re- 
turned in  a  few  years  "  an  absolute  Monsieur,  disparaging 
every  thing  and  every  body's  skill  but  his  own." — (Pepys's 
Diary.)  The  astonished  gentlemen  of  the  king's  band 
then  got  their  first  peep  into  the  new  world.  Humphrey 
told  them  that,  besides  playing  old  rubbish,  they  could 
keep  neither  time  nor  tune ;  and  as  for  the  king's  musical 
director,  he  promised  to  "  give  him  a  lift  out  of  his  place, 
for  that  he  (Master  Humphrey)  and  the  king  understood 
each  other,  and  were  mighty  thick."  In  truth, "  that  brisk 
and  airy  prince"  was  charmed  with  the  new  style :  and 
Pepys  describes  him  nodding  his  royal  head,  and  beating 
time  in  chapel  with  the  greatest  zest. 

The  songs  of  Lulli,  founded  on  Carissimi,  and  the  an- 
thems of  Humphrey,  founded  on  Lulli,  must  indeed,  as  Mr. 
Hullah  observes,  have  come  upon  English  ears  like  a  rev- 
elation, and  startled  the  lovers  of  Gibbons,  Lawes,  and 
Jenkins,  as  much  as  Mozart's  "Idomeneo"  surprised  the 
operatic  world,  or  Beethoven's  "  Eroica"  the  lovers  of  the 


PURCELL.  123 

older  symphonies.  Humphrey  died  in  1674,  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-seven ;  but  his  direct  influence  may  be  traced 
in  Wise,  Blow,  and  Henry  Purcell. 

Purcell,  born  1658,  is  distinguished  by  some  of  those  rare 
w  qualities  peculiar  to  genius  of  the  highest  order. 
Purcell.  jje  gympathized  with  and  drank  deeply  into  the 
spirit  of  his  age,  but  was  not,  like  Humphrey,  absorbed 
by  it.  His  music  stands,  as  it  were,  nicely  balanced  be- 
tween the  past  and  the  future.  He  felt  his  relations  to 
the  one  by  sympathy,  and  to  the  other  by  a  kind  of  almost 
prophetic  intuition.  In  his  day, "  that  grave  and  solemn 
manner  of  music  by  Byrd,  Tallis,  etc.,"  was  in  sad  disre- 
pute ;  the  king  liked  cheerful  airs  he  could  hum  and  beat 
time  to.  Purcell  satisfied  him  fully ;  and  yet  we  can  not 
listen  to  his  music  without  being  struck  sometimes  by  a 
certain  old  flow  of  rhythm  and  harmony,  which  we  feel 
could  only  have  been  derived  from  a  deep  study  of  the 
schools  of  Henry  VIH.  and  Elizabeth.  As  in  reading  Ten- 
nyson we  are  sometimes  affected  with  a  strange  sense  of 
George  Herbert  and  Milton,  so  in  listening  to  Purcell  there 
steals  over  us  a  memory  of  the  olden  time,  like  a  kindly 
ghost  that  rises  and  floats  by  with  a  sweet  and  solemn 
smile. 

It  is  a  pity  that  Purcell  should  have  stooped  occasional- 
ly to  musical  imitation.  The  passion  for  expressing  words 
in  notes,  founded,  as  we  believe,  on  a  puerile  and  mistaken 
view  of  the  sphere  and  legitimate  functions  of  music,  reach- 
es the  ridiculous  in  him.  For  instance,  he  has  to  set  the 
words, "  They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,"  and  pro- 
ceeds to  perform  that  operation  musically  by  taking  the 
bass  down  a  couple  of  octaves,  and  leaving  him  drowned 
at  the  lower  D.  The  same  unhappy  bass  is  soon  after 
"  carried  up  to  heaven"  on  a  high  dotted  crotchet.  Other 
composers  have  been  fond  of  similar  devices.  Handel's 


124  IXT&OD  UCTION  TO  MODERN  MUSIC. 

"  plagues"  are  full  of  them ;  Haydn's  "  Creation"  rejoices 
in  "  a  long  and  sinuous  worm"  of  the  earth,  earthy ;  the  il- 
lusion of  Beethoven's  "  Pastoral"  vanishes  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  real  cuckoo ;  and  even  Mendelssohn  must 
disturb  with  what  can  hardly  be  any  thing  but  a  live  don- 
key the  enchantment  of  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream!" 
But  with  all  abatements,  the  music  of  Purcell,  which  after 
two  hundred  years  has  still  the  power  to  charm,  bears  a 
signal  witness  to  the  force  and  originality  of  his  genius. 
Purcell  died  in  his  thirty-eighth  year,  1696. 

Handel  came  to  England  in  1710.     The  year  1706  is  the 
si.       turning-point  in  his  musical  history.     In  that  year 

HandeL—  ,  ,    J  .   _  J 

Germany,  he  visited  Naples,  and  met  fecarlatti,  Porpora,  and 
Corelli.  It  was  to  him  a  period  of  rapid  assimilation. 
With  one  stride  he  reached  the  front  rank,  and  felt  that 
henceforth  no  musician  alive  could  teach  him  any  thing. 
He  died  in  1759,  aged  seventy-eight.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Handel,  by  his  single  might,  greatly  advanced 
music  in  all  its  branches;  but  his  action  is  far  more  re- 
markable on  vocal  than  on  instrumental  music.  Modern 
instrumental  music  is  simply  the  most  extraordinary  art- 
development  which  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  can  only 
be  compared  to  the  perfection  reached  so  suddenly,  after  a 
certain  point,  by  the  Greek  drama.  But  the  stride  from 
Corelli  to  Beethoven  was  too  great  even  for  the  giant 
Handel,  and  yet  the  men  who  completed  that  stride  were 
Handel's  contemporaries.  Handel  was  forty-seven  when 
Haydn  was  born,  and  Mozart  was  in  his  third  year  when 
Handel  died.  Musically,  how  many  centuries  does  Han- 
del seem  to  us  behind  modern  music !  yet  we  can  all  but 
join  hands  with  him ;  and  the  musical  enthusiast  is  filled 
with  a  certain  awe  when  he  thinks  that  men  are  still  alive 
(1871)  who  may  have  listened  to  Mozart,  and  conversed 
with  the  venerable  Haydn. 


HANDEL 

Born  1685,  Died  1757. 


HIB  Portraits. 


IL 

IT  may  sound  like  an  anachronism  to  call  Handel  a  con. 
temporary,  and  yet  he  seems  so  constantly  pres- 
ent  wj^n  us  ^a^  a^  times  we  can  hai'dly  believe 
that  he  has  passed  away.  We  are  surrounded  by  his  effi- 
gies ;  no  living  face  is  more  familiar  —  no  modern  minstrel 
more  beloved  than  he  who  has  now  lain  quietly  in  the  great 
Abbey  for  some  one  hundred  and  ten  years. 

A  few  hours  after  death  the  sculptor  Roubiliac  took 
a  cast  of  his  face  :  that  dead  face  made  alive  again,  and 
wrought  into  imperishable  marble,  is  indeed  the  very  face 
of  Handel.  There,  towering  above  his  tomb,  towering,  too, 
above  the  passing  generations  of  men,  he  seems  to  accept 


126  HANDEL. 

their  homage  benignly,  like  a  god,  while  he  himself  stands 
rapt  from  the  "  fickle  and  the  frail,"  and  "  moulded  in  co- 
lossal calm." 

The  frequenters  of  Exeter  Hall  are  familiar  with  another 
figure  of  him  clothed  in  a  long  robe,  with  the  legs  crossed, 
and  holding  a  lyre  in  his  hand.  A  marble  bust  of  the  same 
date  (1738)  is  at  the  Foundling  Hospital.  The  head  is 
shaven,  and  crowned  with  a  sort  of  turban  cap ;  the  face  is 
irascible  and  highly  characteristic.  Casts  of  this  bust  have 
been  multiplied  through  the  land,  and  can  be  easily  ob- 
tained. 

The  original  of  what  is  perhaps  the  best  known  of  all 
(1758)  is  in  the  queen's  private  apartments  at  Windsor. 
The  little  china  bust  sold  at  all  music-shops  is  a  fair  copy ; 
on  either  side  of  the  face  falls  down  a  voluminous  wig 
elaborately  wrought.  The  sculptor  seems  to  have  felt  he 
could  no  more  dare  to  treat  that  wig  lightly  than  some 
other  persons  whom  we  shall  have  to  refer  to  by-and-by. 

There  are  more  than  fifty  known  pictures  of  Handel,  and 
the  best  of  them  happens  to  be  also  the  best  known.  It  is 
by  T.  Hudson,  signed  "1756  A,"  at  Gopsall,  the  seat  of  his 
remarkable  friend,  Charles  Jennens.  Handel  is  seated  in 
full  gorgeous  costume  of  the  period,  with  sword,  shot-silk 
breeches,  and  coat  gorge  de  pigeon,  embroidered  with  gold. 
The  face  is  noble  in  its  repose ;  a  touch  of  kindly  benevo- 
lence plays  about  the  finely-shaped  mouth ;  every  trace  of 
angry  emotion  seems  to  have  died  out;  yet  the  lines  of 
age  that  are  somewhat  marked  do  not  rob  the  countenance 
of  its  strength.  The  great  master  wears  the  mellow  dig- 
nity of  years  without  weakness  or  austerity. 

In  that  wonderful  collection  of  pictures  lately  exhibited 
at  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  the  often-recurring  face 
and  figure  of  Handel — young,  middle-aged,  and  old — life- 
size,  full  figure,  head  and  shoulders,  standing  up,  and  sit- 


CHILDHOOD.  127 

ting  down — filled  us  with  the  sense  of  one  who  had  left  a 
deep  and  yet  bewildering  impression  upon  his  own  age. 
The  portraits  were  not  only  different  in  look,  but  even  in 
features.  The  same  face  has  been  subjected  to  the  minute 
photographic  treatment  of  Denner,  and  the  robust  handling 
of  Wolfand,  who  makes  the  composer  fat,  rosy,  and  in  ex- 
cellent condition.  There  are  few  collectors  of  prints  who 
have  not  a  lithograph,  wood-cut,  or  line  engraving  of  him. 
He  is  exposed  in  every  second-hand  print-shop,  still  hangs 
on  the  walls  of  many  old  nook-and-corner  houses  in  Lon- 
don, or  lies  buried  in  unnumbered  portfolios  throughout 
England. 

With  such  memories  fresh  in  our  minds,  and  with  the 
melodious  thunders  of  the  great  Festival  constantly  ring- 
ing in  our  ears,  let  us  attempt  to  trace  once  more  the  his- 
tory of  Handel's  life,  and  hang  another  wreath  upon  the 
monument  of  his  imperishable  fame. 

Handel  or  Handel  (George  Frederick)  was  born  at  Halle, 
53  on  the  Saale,  in  the  duchy  of  Magdeburg,  Lower 
Childhood.  Saxony.  The  date  on  his  tomb  in  Westminster 
Abbey  is  a  mistake  (Feb.  23,1684);  his  real  birthday  is 
Feb.  23, 1685.  Germany  was  not  then  the  great  musical 
country  which  it  has  since  become,  and  was  chiefly  en- 
gaged in  cultivating  at  second-hand  the  flowers  of  Italian 
music,  which  grew  pale  enough  beneath  those  alien  skies. 
The  Italian  maestro  might  be  looked  upon  with  some  re- 
spect, but  the  native  artist  was  not  yet  considered  a  proph- 
et in  his  own  country.  Even  eighty  years  later  Mozart 
and  Haydn  were  treated  like  lackeys.  "  Music,"  remarked 
Handel's  father,  about  a  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago, 
"  is  an  elegant  art  and  fine  amusement,  but  as  an  occupa- 
tion it  hath  little  dignity,  having  for  its  object  nothing 
better  than  mere  entertainment  and  pleasure." 


128  HANDEL. 

No  wonder  the  boy  Handel,  who,  from  his  earliest  child- 
hood, seems  to  have  been  passionately  fond  of  sweet 
Bounds,  encountered  opposition  and  disappointment  in  his 
early  musical  endeavors.  He  was  to  go  to  no  concerts, 
not  even  to  a  public  school,  for  fear  he  should  learn  the 
gamut.  He  must  be  taught  Latin  at  home,  and  become  a 
good  doctor,  like  his  father,  and  leave  the  divine  art  to 
Italian  fiddlers  and  French  mountebanks.  But  up  in  a  lit- 
tle garret  the  child  of  seven  years,  perhaps  with  the  con- 
nivance of  his  nurse  or  his  mother,  had  hidden  a  dumb 
spinet — even  at  night  the  faint  tinkling  could  not  be  heard 
down  below — and  in  stolen  hours,  without  assistance  of 
any  kind,  we  are  told  the  boy  taught  himself  to  play. 

By-and-by  Father  Handel  has  a  mind  to  visit  another 
son  in  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Weissenfels,  and  lit- 
tle George  runs  after  the  carriage,  and  begs  so  hard  to  go, 
that  at  last  he  is  taken  to  the  ducal  palace.  But  he  soon 
turns  out  to  be  an  enfant  terrible  to  his  poor  old  father. 
He  is  caught  playing  the  chapel  organ,  and  is  brought  up 
before  the  duke,  trembling  more,  no  doubt,  at  his  father 
than  at  the  duke,  who  has  heard  him,  and  now  pats  him 
on  the  back  with  "  bravo  !"  Then,  turning  to  his  enraged 
and  afflicted  parent,  he  tells  him  that  his  son  is  a  genius, 
and  must  not  be  snubbed  any  more.  The  boy's  fear  is  now 
exchanged  for  the  wildest  delight,  and  the  father's  rage  is 
quickly  followed  by  astonishment.  Handel  would  often  tell 
the  story  in  after  years ;  and  he  never  forgot  the  duke,  the 
kindest,  because  the  earliest  of  his  benefactors. 

From  this  moment  fortune  seemed  to  smile  upon  him, 
and  his  early  career  exhibits  a  combination  of  circumstan- 
ces wonderfully  favorable  to  the  orderly  development  of 
his  genius.  Severe  training,  patronage,  and  encourage- 
ment, ardent  friendship,  the  constant  society  of  the  first 
composers,  wholesome  rivalry,  and  regular  orchestral  prac- 


EARL  T  MANHOOD.  !  29 

tice,  all  seem  to  be  suddenly  poured  upon  him  out  of  For- 
tune's great  Horn  of  Plenty.  As  the  favorite  pupil  of  the 
great  Halle  organist,  Zachau,  he  analyzes  at  the  outset  very 
nearly  the  whole  existing  mass  of  German  and  Italian  mu- 
sic, and  is  set  to  write  a  cantata  or  motett  once  a  week. 
At  last  the  good  Zachau  has  not  the  conscience  to  put 
him  through  any  more  fugues ;  tells  him  with  kindly  pride 
that  he  already  knows  more  than  his  master,  and  advises 
him  to  go  to  Berlin,  and  study  the  opera  school,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg.  Attilio  Ariosti 
and  Bonoucini  were  then  the  favorite  composers.  The  first 
received  Handel  with  open  arms ;  but  the  second  scowled 
at  him  from  the  beginning,  and  determining  to  put  the 
conceited  boy's  powers  to  the  test,  composed  an  elaborate 
piece,  which  he  challenged  him  to  play  at  sight.  Handel 
played  it  off  like  any  other  piece,  and  from  that  hour  Bo- 
noncini,  who  had  a  bad  disposition,  but  excellent  brains, 
treated  the  boy  with  the  hatred  of  a  rival,  but  with  the 
respect  due  to  an  equal. 

Dr.  Handel's  failing  health  brought  George  Frederick 
54.       back  to  Halle.     In  1697  the  old  man  died,  leaving 

Early 

Manhood,  his  family  ill  provided  for,  and  young  Handel  was 
thus  driven  into  a  course  of  immediate,  though  somewhat 
dry  industry.  He  descended  into  the  ranks,  and  became 
a  kind  of  occasional  second  violin  at  the  Hamburg  Opera- 
house.  As  he  played  little,  and  badly,  the  band  soon  be- 
gan to  sneer  at  an  artist  who  could  hardly  earn  his  salt ; 
but  one  day  the  harpsichordist  (the  principal  person  in  the 
orchestra)  being  absent,  Handel,  then  about  nineteen,  laid 
his  fiddle  aside,  sat  down  in  the  maestro's  place,  and  fin- 
ished by  conducting  the  rehearsal  with  such  ability,  that 
the  whole  orchestra  broke  into  loud  applause.  About  this 
time  Handel  received  an  offer  of  marriage.  He  might  bo 

9 


130  HANDEL. 

organist  of  Lubeck  if  he  would  take  the  daughter  of  the 
retiring  organist  along  with  the  organ.  He  went  down 
with  his  friend  Mattheson,  and  Mattheson  appears  to  have 
been  offered  the  same  terms.  Something,  however,  did  not 
suit — whether  it  was  the  organ,  or  the  daughter,  or  the 
salary,  we  are  not  told ;  but  both  the  young  men  returned 
in  single  blessedness  to  Hamburg. 

Handel  was  never  married ;  and  perhaps  he  felt  it  would 
be  neither  wise  nor  generous  to  accept  as  a  gift  what  he 
had  not  asked  for  and  did  not  want.  The  rivals  in  unre- 
quited affection  were  also  rivals  in  music:  both  Matthe- 
son and  Handel  composed  operas  for  the  Hamburg  Opera. 
They  had  not  come  to  blows  over  love,  but  what  love 
could  not  do,  music  did,  and  the  two,  who  had  probably 
laughed  heartily  together  at  the  maid  of  Lubeck,  found 
themselves  soon  after  with  drawn  swords  in  front  of  the 
theatre,  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  friends  and  admirers. 
They  fought,  as  young  men  will  fight  in  Germany  to  this 
day,  for  the  merest  trifles.  Mattheson's  rapier  struck  Han- 
del on  the  bosom,  but  the  point  shivered  on  a  great  brass 
button ;  a  distinguished  councilor  of  the  town  then  step- 
ped in,  and  gravely  declaring  that  the  claims  of  honor  were 
satisfied,  called  on  the  combatants  to  desist,  and  "  on  the 
30th  of  the  same  month,"  writes  Mattheson,  "  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  having  Handel  to  dine  with  me,  and  we  were 
better  friends  than  ever." 

The  mind  of  genius  in  its  early  stages  is  habitually 
gloomy,  and  dark  tales  of  crime  and  sorrow  often  possess 
irresistible  attractions  for  the  happiest  and  most  innocent 
of  men.  Shakspeare  early  painted  the  tragedy  of  Lucrece 
and  the  death  of  Adonis ;  Schiller  first  made  his  mark 
with  "  The  Robbers ;"  Goethe  with  the  "  Sorrows  of  Wer- 
ther ;"  Schubert,  when  a  mere  boy,  wrote  the  "  Parricide" 
and  a  "  Corpse  Fantasia."  We  shall,  therefore,  not  be  sur- 


ITALY.  131 

prised  to  learn  that  Handel's  first  opera,  Almira,  turns  on 
the  misfortunes  of  a  dethroned  queen ;  while  his  second, 
JVero,  is,  as  the  prospectus  briefly  explains,  intended  to 
show  how  "  Love"  is  "  obtained  by  Blood  and  Murder." 

Handel,  not  content  with  manufacturing  Italian  operas 
50  in  Germany,  had,  in  common  with  every  other  musi- 
Italy.  cjan  of  ^at  (jay^  a  strong  (Jesire  to  visit  Italy  itself, 
the  great  seat  of  musical  learning.  With  singular  inde- 
pendence, he  refused  the  offers  of  Prince  Gaston  de'  Medici 
to  send  him,  but  by  working  hard  with  his  pupils  he  soon 
got  together  money  enough  to  go  at  his  own  expense.  In 
the  month  of  July,  1706,  being  twenty-one  years  old,  he 
first  entered  Florence. 

In  that  beautiful  city,  where  the  flowers  seem  to  come 
so  early  and  linger  so  late,  the  German  musician  staid, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Grand-duke,  until  Christmas. 
Equal  to  Venice  as  a  great  centre  of  art  revival  in  Italy, 
with  its  strange  octagonal  dome,  its  matchless  Giotto  cam- 
panile of  black  and  white  marble,  its  bronze  doors,  its  du- 
cal palazzo,  and  rich  memories  of  Giovanni,  or  Angelico  da 
Fiesole — second  only  to  Rome  in  its  passion  for  the  revival 
of  learning,  and  second  to  no  city  in  poetic  fame — Flor- 
ence was,  indeed,  a  fit  residence  for  the  re-creator  of  all 
music.  Remembering  the  vivid  impression  which  the  first 
aspect  of  Italy  left  upon  the  minds  of  Mozart  and  Mendels- 
sohn, we  can  not  but  regret  that  Handel's  life  at  Florence 
is  a  simple  blank  to  us.  He  composed  the  opera  ofJtode- 
rigo,  for  which  he  obtained  one  hundred  sequins,  and  left 
for  Venice,  where  he  came  in  for  the  thick  of  the  Carnival. 
Here,  too,  we  would  fain  know  what  impression  the  city  in 
the  sea  made  upon  him.  The  marble  palaces,  not  yet  ruin- 
ed by  the  hand  of  decay — the  fa9ades,  the  domes,  and  the 
porticoes,  still  retaining  a  certain  splendor  long  after  the 


132  HANDEL. 

bloom  of  the  Renaissance  had  passed  away — the  shrines 
decorated  with  the  spiritual  heads  of  Bellini — the  stairca- 
ses and  ceilings  plastered  all  over  by  Tintoret — the  cool 
plash  of  the  oars  in  the  still  lagunes — the  sound  of  a  guitar 
at  night  in  the  dark  water-streets — the  sights  and  sounds, 
and,  above  all,  the  silences  peculiar  to  Venice,  must  have 
exerted  a  powerful  influence  over  a  mind  upon  which  noth- 
ing was  thrown  away. 

Whatever  effect  Venice  had  upon  Handel,  it  is  certain 
that  Handel  took  Venice  by  storm.  "  II  caro  Sassone," 
the  dear  Saxon,  came  upon  a  formidable  rival  in  the  per- 
son of  Domenico  Scarlatti,  the  first  harpsichord  player  in 
Italy,  and  the  two  met  frequently  in  the  brilliant  saloons 
of  the  Venetian  aristocracy.  One  night  during  the  Carni- 
val, Handel,  being  masked,  seated  himself  at  the  harpsi- 
chord and  began  playing.  The  Masques  took  little  notice 
until  Scarlatti,  entering,  arrested  their  attention.  The 
great  Italian  was  soon  struck  as  his  ear  caught  the  sound 
of  the  harpsichord,  and,  making  his  way  across  the  room, 
he  shouted, "  It  is  either  the  devil  or  the  Saxon  !"  It  was 
not  the  devil ;  and  let  it  be  written  for  the  learning  of  all 
other  Saxons  and  Italians,  that  Handel  and  Scarlatti  were 
ever  afterward  honorable  rivals  and  fast  friends.  In  a  lat- 
er contest  at  Rome  the  superiority  of  Handel  on  the  harp- 
sichord was  thought  doubtful,  but  he  remained  the  unchal- 
lenged monarch  of  the  organ.  Handel  always  spoke  of 
Scarlatti  with  admiration ;  and  Scarlatti,  whenever  he  was 
complimented  on  his  own  playing,  used  to  pronounce  Han- 
del's name,  and  cross  himself. 

To  satisfy  the  Venetian  public,  Handel  composed  in  three 
weeks  the  opera  of  Agrippina,  which  made  furor  even  in 
that  emporium  of  connoisseurs,  and  gained  for  its  compos- 
er the  above-mentioned  title,  "  II  caro  Sassone."  Having 
Been  summer  in  Florence,  and  the  Carnival  in  Venice,  it 


ITALY.  133 

was  natural  that  he  should  hurry  on  to  be  in  time  for  the 
great  Easter  celebrations  in  the  Eternal  City. 

Rome  in  those  days  was  still  a  power,  and,  though  shorn 
of  much  strength,  she  remained  the  greatest  ecclesiastical 
force  in  Europe.  Let  us  hope  that  the  Pope's  retinue  was 
not  quite  so  shabby  as  it  is  now,  and  that  the  cardinals' 
dingy  old  coaches  were  gilded  and  painted  a  little  more 
frequently.  Probably  they  were ;  for,  although  the  Pope 
himself  was  comparatively  poor,  some  of  the  cardinals  had 
managed  to  amass  enormous  wealth.  Cardinal  Ottoboni, 

o  ' 

Handel's  great  friend  at  Rome,  was  something  of  a  plural- 
ist, and  lived  above  all  sumptuary  laws.  He  advanced  to 
the  purple  a  mere  stripling  of  twenty-two,  and  he  died 
forty  years  later  the  possessor  of  five  abbeys  in  Venice, 
and  three  more  in  France  (which  last  were  alone  worth 
56,000  livres).  He  was  Dean  of  the  Sacred  College,  Bishop 
of  Velletri  and  Ostia,  Protector  of  France,  Archpriest  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  besides  being  an  official  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion. Unlike  some  of  his  compeers,  he  was  not  a  mere  vo- 
luptuary, but  was  the  friend  of  the  people.  He  kept  for 
them  hospitals,  surgeries,  was  princely  in  the  distribution 
of  alms,  patronized  men  of  science  and  art,  and  entertained 
the  public  with  comedies,  operas,  puppet-shows,  oratorios, 
and  academics. 

Under  the  auspices  of  such  a  man,  Handel  composed  the 
operas  of  Amadigi,  Silla,  and  Roderigo,  in  1715;  and  the 
oratorios  of  the  ^Resurrection  and  the  Triumph  of  Time. 
This  last  was  composed  in  honor  of  the  great  cardinal  him- 
self, whose  band-master  was  no  other  than  Corelli,  who 
gave  an  orchestral  performance  in  his  house  once  a  week. 

At  this  early  period  of  his  composition,  Handel  began 
insensibly  to  part  company  with  the  old  Italian  traditions, 
although  not  until  he  had  abandoned  entirely  the  false 
forms  of  opera  was  it  possible  for  him  to  carry  out  the 


134  HANDEL. 

changes  in  choral  and  orchestral  music  with  which  his  name 
is  forever  associated.  In  the  Triumph  of  Time  the  dead 
level  of  melody  and  recitative  is  definitely  abandoned,  and 
we  find  there,  in  addition  to  the  usual  chorus  at  the  end,  a 
striking  innovation  in  the  shape  of  two  long  vocal  quartets. 
The  MS.  of  the  Resurrection  contains  an  unusual  number 
of  wind  instruments,  although  it  may  be  doubted,  for  this 
very  reason,  whether  it  was  ever  performed  in  Italy  with 
the  full  orchestra. 

Bidding  adieu  to  the  pomps  and  splendors  of  Rome, 
Handel  now  went  southward,  and  chose  the  Bay  of  Naples 
for  his  second  summer  in  Italy ;  and  no  doubt  among  the 
vine-clad  hills  that  rise  above  that  delightful  city  he  en- 
countered the  scenes,  and  came  upon  the  types  of  rugged 
men,  gentle  swains,  and  Neapolitan  women,  which  provided 
him  with  the  mise  en  scene  and  dramatis  personce  of  Aci, 
Galatea  e  Polifemo  (1708). 

This  Italian  serenata  differs  from  the  English  cantata  of 
Acis  and  Galatea,  although,  when  the  latter  was  brought 
out  in  1732,  it  contained  several  Italian  airs,  among  them 
the  popular  "  Non  sempre  no  crudele,"  which,  although 
quite  distinct  from  "  O,  ruddier  than  the  cherry,"  is  excel- 
lent rough  singing  for  a  basso  giant.  While  in  this  roman- 
tic and  pastoral  vein,  he  composed  a  number  of  songs  on 
the  model  of  the  French  canzonets,  which  became  fashion- 
able all  over  Europe.  Then  touching,  as  it  were,  cautious- 
ly the  fringes  of  Catholicism,  he  composed  a  few  sacred 
pieces  for  the  Mass ;  but  this  kind  of  thing  was  never  much 
to  his  taste.  Handel  brought  from  the  land  of  the  Refor- 
mation all  the  instincts  of  a  stern  Lutheran.  He  seems  to 
have  revolted  from  shams  of  all  kinds.  No  wonder,  then, 
if  he  found  it  impossible  to  clothe  with  a  religious  senti- 
ment dogmas  which  his  common  sense  repudiated,  and 
which  his  section  of  the  Church  denounced.  Passing  back 


ENGLAND.  135 

slowly  through  Rome,  Florence,  Venice,  there  seemed  to 
him  less  and  less  inducement  to  linger  any  where.  The 
composer  of  Halle  was  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  maes- 
tros  of  Italy,  and  probably  began  to  be  dimly  conscious  of 
the  fact  that  his  methods  of  work  and  his  mission  were  es- 
sentially different  from  theirs. 

In  the  autumn  of  1 709  he  arrived  in  Hanover,  and  it  was 
56  at  the  court  of  George  of  Brunswick  (afterward 
England.  King  of  England)  that  he  fell  in  with  certain  En- 
glish noblemen,  who  invited  him  over  to  see  them.  Al- 
though he  was  retained  in  the  service  of  the  Elector  at  a 
salary  of  £300  a  year,  he  obtained  leave  from  that  liberal 
prince  to  visit  England ;  and  after  once  more  greeting  his 
old  master  Zachau,  and  embracing  his  aged  mother  at 
Halle,  he  prepared  to  cross  that  untried  and  treacherous 
ocean  on  which  poor  Papa  Haydn  (who  was  to  be  born  only 
twenty-three  years  afterward)  was  destined  to  be  so  terri- 
bly tossed  about  before  he  arrived  here  on  a  similar  mis- 
sion. Both  found  London  mad  for  Italian  music;  but, 
while  Haydn  was  able,  through  the  advance  of  taste,  to  im- 
pose his  own  style  in  the  symphony,  Handel,  less  fortunate, 
had  to  fall  in  with  the  prevalent  taste,  and  toil  through 
many  years  of  Italian  opera-manufacturing  before  he  could 
gain  a  hearing  for  his  real  creations  in  oratorio  music. 

What  the  public  adored  was  opera  "  after  the  Italian 
model"  —  what  they  tolerated  was  "  English  singing  be- 
tween the  acts  by  Doggett ;"  and  Handel  proved  fully  equal 
to  the  occasion.  His  first  opera,  Rinaldo,  was  brought  out 
at  a  theatre  which  stood  on  the  site  of  the  present  Hay- 
market.  It  proved  an  immense  success.  Nearly  the  whole 
of  it  was  arranged  for  the  harpsichord,  and  thrummed  in- 
cessantly throughout  the  kingdom.  The  march  was  adopt- 
ed by  the  band  of  the  Life  Guards,  and  died  hard  about 


136  HANDEL. 

the  beginning  of  this  century.  It  has  since  been  revived 
in  the  gardens  at  the  Crystal  Palace.  One  air  has  at  least 
survived,  and  by  virtue  of  a  certain  undefined  quality,  in- 
herent only  in  the  highest  works  of  art,  seems  to  have  de- 
fied with  success  the  developments  of  modern  music  and 
the  changes  of  taste.  Like  Stradella's  divine  "  I  miei  Sos- 
piri,"  like  Gluck's  "  Che  faro,"  Handel's  "  Lascia  che  io  pi- 
anga"  is  still  listened  to  with  profound  interest  and  genuine 
emotion.  Handel  considered  it  one  of  his  best  airs.  Walsh 
published  the  whole  opera,  and  is  said  to  have  made  a  profit 
of  £1500  out  of  the  sale.  When  Handel,  who,  it  was  said 
(apparently  without  much  foundation),  had  been  but  shab- 
bily paid,  was  told  of  this,  he  accosted  the  publisher  in  the 
following  characteristic  manner:  "My  friend,  next  time 
you  shall  compose  the  opera,  and  I  will  sell  it."  It  is  prob- 
able that  Walsh,  who  published  many  of  Handel's  works 
in  after  years,  took  the  hint. 

But  the  Elector's  Chapel -master  could  no  longer  be 
5T.         spared.     He  returned  to  Hanover  in  about  sir 

Second  Visit 

to  England,  months,  and  settled  down  to  compose  all  sorts 
of  trifles  for  the  court  dilettanti.  After  the  stir  and  ex- 
citement of  London,  that  dull  and  pompous  little  court 
must  have  been  terribly  monotonous.  Chapel-master  Han- 
del soon  escaped  back  to  England,  and  in  1712  he  brought 
out  an  ode  for  Queen  Anne's  birthday.  In  1713,  to  cele- 
brate the  peace  of  Utrecht,  appeared  two  more  works,  that 
must  always  be  listened  to  with  interest — the  famous  Te 
Deum  and  Jubilate.  They  were  played  then  with  a  full 
band  and  organ,  and  not  a  little  startled  people  who  were 
unaccustomed  to  hear  sacred  music  with  such  an  accom- 
paniment. The  queen  granted  the  composer  a  pension  of 
£200  a  year,  and  he  seems  to  have  immediately  forgotten 
all  about  Elector  George  and  his  stupid  court.  But  the 


SECOND  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  137 

day  of  reckoning  was  not  far  off,  and  the  truant  Chapel- 
master  soon  found  himself  in  an  awkward  position.  When 
good  Queen  Anne  died,  Elector  George  took  possession  of 
the  empty  throne  as  George  L  of  England,  and  Handel  was 
forbidden  to  appear  before  his  old  patron,  who  was  natu- 
rally very  angry  with  him. 

But  the  atmosphere  of  London  was  charged  with  Han- 
del. People  sang  him  in  the  streets,  and  he  came  floating 
in  at  the  windows;  the  band  played  him  in  the  Palace 
Yard;  his  name  filled  the  opera-house,  and  was  inscribed 
on  numberless  music-books,  programmes,  and  newspapers 
— nay,  at  last,  the  first  violinist  of  the  day  insisted  on  hav- 
ing Handel  into  the  king's  antechamber  to  accompany 
some  sonatas.  It  was  obvious  that  terms  must  be  made 
with  so  irrepressible  a  person.  One  day,  as  the  king  went 
down  the  river  in  his  state  barge,  a  boat  came  after  him 
playing  new  and  delightful  "  water  music."  But  one  man 
could  have  written  such  music,  and  the  king  knew  it ;  he 
called  for  Handel,  who  could  now  have  no  temptation  to 
run  away,  and  sealed  his  pardon  with  a  new  pension  of 
£200  a  year.  The  day  on  which  the  king  and  Handel 
were  reconciled  was  a  day  of  feasting  and  joy.  Houses  on 
both  sides  of  the  river  were  brilliantly  illuminated.  As 
they  came  back,  numbers  of  boats,  filled  with  spectators, 
put  off  to  meet  the  royal  barge,  and  cannons  continued  to 
fire  salutes  until  after  nightfall. 

The  "water  music"  may  be  said  to  be  steadily  written 
down  to  the  requirements  of  the  age.  The  author  seems 
to  say  to  himself  all  the  way  through, "  Let  us  be  popular, 
or  we  are  nothing."  Within  the  stiff  periods,  which  seem- 
ed so  charming  and  so  spontaneous  to  our  forefathers,  and 
which  are  so  tedious  to  us,  there  is,  no  doubt,  a  considera- 
ble play  of  fancy ;  and  had  there  been  more  originality,  the 
music  would  doubtless  have  had  a  less  immediate  success. 


138  HANDEL. 

Soon  after,  the  opera  of  Amadigi  made  its  appearance, 
and  with  it  came  that  infallible  symptom  of  dramatic  de- 
cline—  minute  attention  to  stage  fittings  and  gorgeous 
scenery;  and  we  fear  it  must  be  confessed  that  these  ac- 
cessories, and  not  Handel's  music,  began  to  be  relied  on  for 
success.  Melancholy  stress  is  laid  on  the  "new  clothes, 
and  scenes,  and  novel  variety  of  dancing;"  and  among 
other  things,  attention  was  called  "particularly  to  the 
fountain,"  which,  like  the  "pump"  property  belonging  to 
another  illustrious  company  of  players,  was  real,  and  had 
to  be  lugged  in  on  all  occasions.  The  music  certainly  at- 
tempted some  novel  effects,  and  in  the  accompaniment  to 
one  cavatina,  the  experiment  first  tried  in  the  Resurrection 
in  Rome,  1708,  of  making  the  violins  all  play  in  octaves, 
was  repeated  in  London,  1715. 

Handel  at  this  time  moved  in  good  society.     Rival  fac- 
68.         tions  had  not  yet  been  organized  to  crush  him. 

Handel  and   _       .   _,      ,.          J  ,  . 

his  Friends.  Lord  Burlington  was  glad  to  have  him  at  his 
mansion,  which  was  then  considered  out  of  town.  When 
the  king  twitted  this  nobleman  good-humoredly  for  living 
out  at  what  we  may  call  the  St.  John's  Wood  of  the  pe- 
riod, his  lordship  replied  that  he  liked  his  "  house  in  the 
middle  of  the  fields,"  for  he  was  fond  of  solitude,  and  was 
placed  where  none  could  build  near.  The  beadle  of  the 
Burlington  Arcade,  much  like  a  superannuated  relic  of  his 
lordship's  household,  had  not  then  come  into  existence. 
For  years  the  noisy  stream  of  life  has  flowed  along  Picca- 
dilly, close  past  the  portico  of  the  once  secluded  "  house 
in  the  fields." 

It  is  strange  now  to  think  of  the  people  with  whom 
Handel  must  daily  have  rubbed  elbows,  without  knowing 
that  their  names  and  his  would  in  a  century  be  famous. 
Yonder  heavy,  ragged-looking  youth,  standing  at  the  cor- 


HANDEL  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  139 

uer  of  Regent  Street,  with  a  slight  and  rather  more  re- 
fined-looking companion,  is  the  obscure  Samuel  Johnson, 
quite  unknown  to  fame.  He  is  walking  with  Richard 
Savage.  As  Signor  Handel, "  the  composer  of  Italian  mu- 
sic," passes  by,  Savage  becomes  excited,  and  nudges  his 
friend,  who  takes  only  a  languid  interest  in  the  foreigner. 
Johnson  did  not  care  for  music ;  of  many  noises  he  consid- 
ered it  the  least  disagreeable. 

Towards  Charing  Cross  comes,  in  shovel  hat  and  cassock, 
the  renowned  ecclesiastic  Dean  Swift.  He  has  just  nodded 
patronizingly  to  Bononcini  in  the  Strand,  and  suddenly 
meets  Handel,  who  cuts  him  dead.  Nothing  disconcerted, 
the  dean  moves  on,  muttering  his  famous  epigram : 

"  Some  say  that  Signor  Bononcini, 
Compared  to  Handel,  is  a  ninny  ; 
While  others  vow  that  to  him  Handel 
Is  hardly  fit  to  hold  a  candle. 
Strange  that  such  difference  should  be 
'Twixt  tweedledum  and  tweedledee." 

As  Handel  enters  the  "  Turk's  Head"  at  the  corner  of 
Regent  Street,  a  noble  coach  and  four  drives  up.  It  is  the 
Duke  of  Chandos,  who  is  inquiring  for  Mr.  Pope.  Present- 
ly a  deformed  little  man,  in  an  iron-gray  suit,  and  with  a 
face  as  keen  as  a  razor,  hobbles  out,  makes  a  low  bow  to 
the  burly  Handel,  who,  helping  him  into  the  chariot,  gets 
in  after  him,  and  they  drive  off  together  to  Cannons,  the 
duke's  mansion  at  Edgware.  There  they  meet  Mr.  Addi- 
son,  the  poet  Gay,  and  the  witty  Arbuthnot,  who  have 
been  asked  to  luncheon.  The  last  number  of  the  Spectator 
lies  on  the  table,  and  a  brisk  discussion  soon  arises  be- 
tween Pope  and  Addison  concerning  the  merits  of  the  Ital- 
ian opera,  in  which  Pope  would  have  the  better  if  he  only 
knew  a  little  more  about  music,  and  could  keep  his  temper. 
Arbuthnot  sides  with  Pope  in  favor  of  Mr.  Handel's  operas; 


140  HANDEL. 

the  duke  endeavors  to  keep  the  peace.  Handel  probably 
uses  his  favorite  exclamation, "Vat  de  tevil  I  care!"  and 
consumes  the  recherche  wines  and  rare  viands  with  undi- 
miuished  gusto. 

The  magnificent,  or  the  Grand-duke,  as  he  was  called, 
had  built  himself  a  palace  for  £230,000.  He  had  a  private 
chapel,  and  appointed  Handel  organist  in  the  room  of  the 
celebrated  Dr.  Pepusch,  who  retired  with  excellent  grace 
before  one  manifestly  his  superior.  On  week-days  the  duke 
and  duchess  entertained  all  the  wits  and  grandees  in  town, 
and  on  Sundays  the  Edgware  Road  was  thronged  with  the 
gay  equipages  of  those  who  went  to  worship  at  the  ducal 
chapel  and  hear  Mr.  Handel  play  on  the  organ. 

The  Edgware  Road  was  a  pleasant  country  drive,  but 
parts  of  it  were  so  solitary  that  highwaymen  were  much 
to  be  feared.  The  duke  was  himself  attacked  on  one  oc- 
casion ;  and  those  who  could  afford  it  never  traveled  so 
far  out  of  town  without  armed  retainers.  Cannons  was 
the  pride  of  the  neighborhood,  and  the  duke  —  of  whom 

Pope  wrote, 

i 

"Thus  gracious  Chandos  is  beloved  at  sight" — 

was  as  popular  as  he  was  wealthy.  But  his  name  is  made 
still  more  illustrious  by  the  Chandos  anthems.  They  were 
all  written  at  Cannons  between  1718  and  1720,  and  num- 
ber in  all  eleven  overtures,  thirty-two  solos,  six  duets,  a 
trio,  quartet,  and  forty-seven  choruses.  Some  of  the  above 
are  real  masterpieces ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  "  The 
waves  of  the  sea  rage  horribly,"  and  "  Who  is  God  but  the 
Lord  ?"  few  of  them  are  ever  heard  now.  And  yet  these 
anthems  were  most  significant  in  the  variety  of  the  cho- 
ruses and  in  the  range  of  the  accompaniments ;  and  it  was 
then,  no  doubt,  that  Handel  was  feeling  his  way  toward 
the  great  and  immortal  sphere  of  his  oratorio  music.  In- 


HANDEL  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  141 

deed,  his  first  oratorio  of  Esther  was  composed  at  Cannons, 
as  also  the  English  version  of  Acis  and  Galatea. 

But  what  has  become  of  the  noble  duke  and  his  man- 
sion ?  The  little  chapel,  now  Whitchurch,  at  Edgware, 
alone  survives.  Handel's  organ  is  still  there ;  and  Mr.  Ju- 
lius Plummer,  of  honorable  memory,  fixed  this  plate  upon 
it  in  1750: 

HANDEL    WAS    ORGANIST    OF   THIS   CHUECH 

FROM   MDCCXVIII.   TO   MDCCXXL, 

AND    COMPOSED   THE    ORATORIO    OF   ESTHER 

ON  THIS   ORGAN. 

The  castle  has  been  pulled  down,  and  the  plow  has  pre- 
pared the  site  for  cultivation.  In  the  prophetic  words  of 
Pope, 

"  Another  age  has  seen  the  golden  ear 
Embrown  the  slope  and  nod  on  the  parterre ; 
Deep  harvests  bury  all  his  pride  has  plann'd, 
And  laughing  Ceres  reassumes  the  land." 

But  Handel  had  other  associates,  and  we  must  now  visit 
Thomas  Britton,  the  coal-heaver  of  Clerkenwell  Green.  As 
he  stands  at  the  door  of  his  stable,  with  his  dustman's  hat 
on,  a  coarse  blouse,  and  a  kerchief  tied  round  his  neck  like 
a  rope,  who  should  drive  up  but  the  beautiful  Duchess  of 
Queensberry — not  to  order  coals,  forsooth,  but  to  visit  Mr. 
Britton.  Laying  down  his  pipe,  he  receives  her  like  one 
accustomed  to  mix  with  "the  quality,"  and  pushing  open 
a  rickety  wooden  door,  discloses  a  narrow  staircase.  This 
leads  up  to  a  long,  low  room,  built  over  the  stable.  As 
the  lovely  duchess  trips  laughingly  up  the  stairs  after  her 
strange  host,  sounds  of  a  chamber  organ  and  stringed  in- 
struments reach  them,  and  as  they  enter  the  imperfectly- 
lighted  apartment,  they  perceive  that  Mr.  Handel  is  at  the 
organ,  helping  the  others  to  tune  up. 


142  HANDEL. 

There  is  Mr.  Banister,  the  first  Englishman  who  distin- 
guished himself  on  the  violin :  he  gave  concerts  of  his  own 
at  Whitefriars,  near  the  Temple  back  gate,  fitted  up  a  room 
over  the  "  George  Tavern"  with  seats  and  tables — charge, 
"one  shilling  admission  and  call  for  what  you  please;" 
but  he  was  always  glad  to  play  gratis  for  his  friend  the 
coal-heaver,  in  whose  den  he  met  with  the  last  musical 
novelties  and  the  best  society  in  town.  Then  there  is  Sir 
Roger  1'Estrange,  gentleman,  in  close  converse  with  the 
excise  officer,  Henry  Needier;  and  Robe,  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  is  telling  the  last  bit  of  scandal  about  Madame  Cuz- 
zoni  to  John  Hughes,  who  wrote  the  "  Siege  of  Damascus," 
a  poem  which  his  friends  considered  equal  to  Dryden,  and 
superior  to  Mr.  Pope.  And  there  is  Mr.  Woolaston,  the 
painter,  who,  when  Britton  has  sat  down  with  his  viol  de 
gamba,  and  got  to  work  on  a  trio  of  Hasse  or  a  sarabund 
by  Galuppi,  will  take  out  his  pencil  and  make  a  rough 
sketch  of  him,  to  be  afterward  worked  into  one  of  his  fa- 
mous pictures  (for  he  painted  two  portraits  of  his  singular 
friend). 

Among  other  friends  that  are  crowding  into  the  long 
room  to  listen  to  a  particularly  favorite  trio  of  Corelli's,  or 
to  hear  Mr.  Handel  play  his  original  piece  called  the  "  Har- 
monious Blacksmith"  —  that  favorite  morceau  from  the 
"  Suites  de  pieces  pour  le  Clavecin,"  which,  like  Stephen 
Heller's  "  Nuits  Blanches,"  or  "  Wanderstunden,"  was  soon 
reprinted  in  France,  Switzerland,  Holland,  and  Germany — 
among  other  distinguished  guests  we  notice  Henry  Sy- 
monds,  Abiel  Wichello,  and  Obadiah  Shuttleworth.  The 
little  form  of  Pope  is  probably  not  far  from  the  fair  Queens- 
berry,  or  her  Grace  of  Chandos ;  and  later  in  the  evening, 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Pepusch  will  look  in  with  that  wag  Col- 
ley  Gibber,  whose  jokes  he  will  in  vain  endeavor  to  pre- 
vent from  exploding  in  the  middle  of  some  favorite  ga- 
votte by  Bononcini. 


HANDEL  AND  HIS  FRIENDS.  143 

But  the  gentleman  with  a  full,  good-natured  face,  the 
carefully-powdered  wig,  the  maroon-colored  coat,  who  en- 
ters on  tiptoe,  is  evidently  of  importance  in  the  present 
circle.  Britton  motions  him  to  a  seat,  and  Handel  makes 
room  for  him  close  to  the  organ.  It  is  Mr.  Charles  Jen- 
nens,  the  amateur  poet,  who  wrote  many  of  Handel's  libret- 
tos for  him,  and  arranged  the  words  for  the  Messiah.  He 
lived  in  Great  Ormond  Street,  in  such  magnificence  that 
the  neighbors  called  him  "  Soliman  the  Magnificent."  Later 
in  life  he  had  a  controversy  with  Samuel  Johnson  about 
Shakspeare,  but  the  world,  which  has  since  learned  to  love 
the  dear  doctor,  has  forgotten  the  magnate  of  Great  Or- 
mond Street ;  and  even  at  that  time  it  was  commonly  al- 
lowed that  the  dictionary-maker  had  the  best  of  the  argu- 
ment. 

It  is  hard  to  leave  that  goodly  company  of  wits,  poets, 
musicians,  and  philosophers  when  we  have  once  drawn 
aside  the  curtain  and  taken  a  peep  at  their  faces.  We  fol- 
low them  about  from  one  great  dingy  house  to  another — 
some  of  their  houses  are  still  standing.  They  have  deep 
wainscoted  walls,  and  narrow  windows  and  back  yards, 
with  perhaps  a  superannuated  fig-tree,  and  a  classic  foun- 
tain dripping  over  some  Cupid  with  a  large  sham  cockle- 
shell. All  is  dreary  enough  and  changed  —  the  place  is 
probably  a  hospital  or  an  attorney's  chambers  now — but 
the  old  tenants  come  back  to  us  in  imagination  as  we  stand 
at  the  door  or  sit  down  in  the  dining-room.  While  the 
vision  lasts  we  long  to  have  more  details ;  but  scene  after 
scene  rises  only  to  vanish  too  rapidly  from  the  mind's  eye. 
We  have  hardly  time  to  master  the  trains  and  puffs,  the 
frills  and  the  patches  of  the  ladies ;  to  note  the  set  of  the 
nodding  wigs,  the  glitter  of  color  in  plush  and  satin,  the 
clinking  swords  of  the  cavaliers,  the  rumble  of  the  heavy 
coaches  and  four,  the  shouts  of  the  link-boys  and  torch- 


144  HANDEL. 

bearers,  the  swearing  of  the  tall  footmen  who  wait  outside 
in  the  ill-lighted  streets  with  those  snug  sedan  chairs :  they 
are  there,  but  only,  like  Mr.  Pepper's  ghosts,  behind  glass ; 
the  voices  sound  hollow  and  distant,  the  magic  light  is 
flashed  upon  them  for  a  moment,  presently  it  fades  out, 
and  they  are  gone. 

In  1720,  Handel,  being  at  the  time  the  organist  at  Can- 
59  nons,  was  engaged  by  a  society  of  noblemen,  includ- 
Operaa.  jQg  j^jg  Qrace  of  Chandos,  to  compose  operas  for  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Music  at  the  Haymarket,  and  the  Post- 
boy soon  afterward  announces  "  the  most  celebrated  opera 
Radamistus,  by  Mr.  Handell."  Of  this  opera,  "Ombra 
Cara,"  which  Handel  considered  one  of  the  finest  airs  he 
had  ever  written,  may  still  be  occasionally  heard.  The 
work  was  fairly  successful,  and  was  followed,  in  1721,  by 
Muzio  SccBvola,  to  which  we  shall  return  presently. 

In  1721  Floridante  also  appeared.  It  was  this  opera 
which  called  forth  the  remark  from  Dr.  Burney,  "  I  am 
convinced  that  his  slow  airs  are  as  much  superior  to  those 
of  his  contemporaries  as  the  others  are  in  spirit  and 
science."  Otto,  which  appeared  in  1723,  was  generally 
considered  the  flower  of  his  dramatic  works.  Like  Mo- 
zart's Don  Jitan,  Weber's  Freischutz,  Rossini's  Tell,  Mey- 
erbeer's Prophtte,  and  Gounod's  Faust,  it  was  a  work  com- 
posed of  one  long  string  of  gems,  and  each  air  became  in 
its  turn  a  favorite  throughout  the  land.  Pepusch,  who 
could  never  quite  forget  that  he  had  been  the  best  organ- 
ist in  England  before  the  arrival  of  Handel,  remarked  of 
"Affani  del  pensier,"  "That  great  bear  was  certainly  in- 
spired when  he  wrote  that  song."  The  celebrated  Ma- 
dame Cuzzoni  came  out  in  it  On  the  second  night  the 
tickets  rose  to  four  guineas  each,  and  the  Cuzzoni  was  paid 
£2000  for  the  season. 


OPERAS.  145 

In  the  same  year  Flamo  and  Giidio  Cesare  were  pro- 
duced. The  first  is  celebrated  for  the  "  Doni  Pace"  (the 
first  scenic  quintet  ever  composed).  The  second  is  forever 
associated  with  poor  George  III.  It  was  revived  in  1787 
in  order  to  attract  him  to  the  theatre  to  hear  some  of  Han- 
del's music,  of  which  he  was  passionately  fond.  "Da 
Tempesta"  and  "Alma  del  gran  Pompeo"  are  still  much 
esteemed  by  connoisseurs.  In  1725  Hodelinda  was  re- 
ceived with  enthusiasm ;  the  public  going  so  far  as  to 
adopt  in  society  the  costume  worn  by  the  favorite  prima 
donna. 

Between  1726  and  1727  appeared  Scipio,  Siroe,  and  Ptol- 
emy, of  which  little  can  now  be  said.  The  principal  airs 
were  popular  at  the  time,  and  published  in  the  favorite 
form  of  harpsichord  pieces,  in  which  some  of  them  are  still 
extant ;  and  many  more  have  been  worked  up  by  subse- 
quent composers  until  their  phrases  have  passed  into  mod- 
ern music,  and  now  live  over  again  unrecognized  in  the 
works  of  many  a  contemporary  composer,  and,  perhaps, 
suspected  least  of  all  by  the  composer  himself.  We  re- 
member our  astonishment  at  discovering  M.  Jullien's  once 
celebrated  "  Bridal  Waltz"  in  a  trio  of  Corelli ;  it  is  noto- 
rious that  "  Where  the  Bee  Sucks,"  by  Dr.  Arne,  is  taken 
from  a  movement  in  Rinaldo ;  and  we  doubt  not  that  a 
farther  study  of  the  old  masters  would  bring  to  light  simi- 
lar cases.  Thus  the  soil  of  music  is  ever  growing  rich 
with  the  dead  leaves  of  the  past,  and  what  appears  to  us 
the  new  life  in  forest  and  glade  is,  after  all,  but  the  old  life 
under  a  new  form. 

But  a  change  was  at  hand.     In  1720  this  Royal  Acade- 
60        my  of  noblemen  had  subscribed  £50,000  to  get  up 
Reverses.  tbe  itaijan  Opera,  and  they  had  engaged  Mr.  Han- 
del to  compose.     The  first  operas,  as  we  have  seen,  made 
10 


146  HANDEL. 

furor ;  the  singers  were  the  finest  in  the  world,  the  audi- 
ence of  the  very  grandest  description.  Opera  after  opera 
rolled  from  Mr.  Handel's  facile  pen.  But,  as  time  went  on, 
sinister  rumors  got  afloat.  It  was  said  the  funds  were  not 
coming  in.  It  is  quite  certain  they  were  going  out.  In  two 
years  the  committee  of  management  had  spent  £15,000; 
the  wits  and  critics  were  beginning  to  abuse  Mr.  Handel, 
and  laugh  at  his  supporters.  The  appeals  for  money  be- 
came urgent.  The  libretto  to  Ptolemy  even  announces 
that  they  were  "  in  the  last  extremity."  Some  of  his  warm 
supporters  began  to  cool ;  either  they  could  not  or  would 
not  pay.  Threats  at  last  caused  an  open  breach.  Many 
forsook  the  Opera-house ;  the  rest  got  up  a  ball  to  pay  the 
expenses,  and  invitations  were  issued  to  improper  charac- 
ters. The  proceedings  were  declared  by  legal  authority 
to  be  "  an  offense  to  his  majesty's  virtuous  subjects ;"  the 
opera  itself  "a  nursery  of  lewdness,  extravagance,  and  im- 
morality." It  ended  by  the  whole  thing  being  put  a  stop 
to  by  order  of  the  king  ;  and  poor  Handel,  who  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  ball,  and  never  got  the  money,  found 
himself  defiled  without  having  touched  the  pitch.  To 
make  matters  worse,  an  opposition  house  started  up.  The 
Beggar^  Opera,  with  music  by  Dr.  Pepusch,  who  stole 
some  of  it  from  Handel,  was  brought  out  at  the  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields  Theatre,  and  the  fickle  public,  suffering  under 
a  surfeit  of  Julius  Ccesar,  Cyrus,  and  all  the  Ptolemies. 
went  off  in  crowds  to  enjoy  a  little  low  life  with  the  bur- 
glar Macheath  and  Polly.  Rich  was  the  name  of  the  man- 
ager, and  Gay  that  of  the  poet ;  and  the  people  who  night- 
ly greeted  the  smiling  manager,  and  called  loudly  for  the 
needy  poet,  remarked  that  the  Beggars'  Opera  had  made 
Gay  rich  and  Rich  gay. 

Handel,  who  either  could  not  or  would  not  see  that  a 
change  had  taken  place  in  the  public  taste,  gathered  up 


MORE  TJtIALS.  itf 

the  remnant  of  his  fortune,  and,  making  arrangements  with 
Heidegger,  proprietor  of  the  Haymarket,  prepared  to  make 
another  serious  attack  on  the  musical  world  in  the  charac- 
ter of  an  operatic  composer.  He  made  up  his  various  quar- 
rels with  the  singers  and  managers,  got  together  his  scat- 
tered orchestra,  and  finally  went  off  in  person  to  Italy  for 
re-enforcements.  His  energy  was  undiminished ;  he  was 
in  his  finest  musical  vein,  and  prepared  to  pour  forth  opera 
after  opera  upon  a  public  whose  ears  and  eyes  seemed 
closed. 

In  1729  Lothario  was  produced.  Parthenope  followed 
in  1731.  Both  fell  flat.  The  wonderful  voice  of  Senesino 
carried  Porus  through  fifteen  representations  in  1731,  then 
Rinaldo  was  revived  with  "  new  cloathes,"  but  the  public 
had  heard  the  music  and  did  not  care  for  the  "cloathes;" 
and  when  ^ffitius  appeared  in  the  following  year,  they 
grumbled  at  the  old  clothes,  and  did  not  care  for  the  new 
music.  A  faint  flicker  of  interest  was  shown  in  Sosarme, 
produced  in  the  same  year,  but  the  audience  steadily  drop- 
ped off;  and  Orlando  (1733),  although  the  scenery  was  ad- 
mitted to  be  "  extraordinary  fine  and  magnificent,"  died 
without  a  struggle  in  an  empty  house. 

True  originality  has  usually  the  same  battle  to  fight 
61         with  conventional  tastes,  stupidity,  or  ignorance. 

More  trials.   ^  Duke   of  \\relHngtonj  JQ  the  peninsula)  con. 

tending  for  his  own  measures  with  a  distant  government ; 
Nelson  disobeying  orders  at  Copenhagen ;  Jenner  trying 
to  persuade  people  to  be  vaccinated ;  or  the  Liberal  poli- 
ticians of  our  own  age  laboring  for  years  to  pass  Liberal 
measures,  are  only  instances  in  other  spheres  of  action  of 
what  is  constantly  going  on  in  the  world  of  Art. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  inquire  in  such  cases  how  far 
circumstances  control  men  and  their  measures,  and  how  far 


148  HANDEL. 

men  and  their  measures  were  influenced  by  circumstances. 
In  some  cases  we  seem  to  have  very  nearly  a  balance  of 
power.  Handel's  operatic  career  is  a  case  in  point.  It 
would  be  curious  to  study  how  far  the  very  music  and  in- 
strumentation were  dictated  to  him  at  times  by  the  tyran- 
ny, necessity,  or  solicitation  of  circumstance.  One  of  the 
airs  allotted  to  Polifemo  was  certainly  written  for  an  ex- 
ceptional voice,  for  it  contains  a  range  of  two  octaves  and 
five  notes.  Semiramis,  Gains  Fabriciits,  and  Arbaces,  play- 
ed in  1734,  are  simply  pasticcio  operas,  composed  of  all 
sorts  of  airs,  in  which  each  singer  has  the  opportunity  of 
singing  his  bravura  songs.  Some  of  them  are  Italian,  oth- 
ers German,  and  these  fragmentary  songs  are  all  strung  to- 
gether by  a  recitative,  which  is  the  only  new  part  of  the 
opera.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  curious  hints  and 
suggestions  in  the  writings  of  other  composers  which  point 
to  a  similar  pressure  or  peculiarity  of  circumstance.  The 
soprano  part  of  Mozart's  Flauto  Magico,  especially  the 
great  aria  with  the  staccato  passages,  was  written  for  a 
special  voice. 

The  only  reason  why  Schubert  did  not  write  more  sym- 
phonies was  the  difficulty  of  getting  them  played.  It  has 
been  remarked  in  the  notices  in  the  Crystal  Palace  Satur- 
day programmes  that  Beethoven's  relations  with  the  in- 
struments of  his  orchestras,  and  especially  with  the  horn, 
are  often  suggestive.  In  the  B  flat  symphony  there  is  only 
one  flute  instead  of  two.  Of  Mozart's  G  minor  symphony 
there  are  two  versions,  one  with  clarionets  and  one  with- 
out. It  is  well  known  that  the  opening  to  William  Tell 
overture  was  written  for  a  celebrated  violoncello  at  Vi- 
enna, while  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Handel  wrote 
many  of  his  finest  airs  for  particular  voices. 

But  it  is  refreshing  to  learn  that  the  voices  had  occa- 
sionally to  bend  to  the  genius  of  the  composer  or  the  in* 


MORE  TRIALS.  149 

perious  will  of  the  man.  When  Carestini,  the  celebrated 
evirato,  sent  back  the  air  "  Verdi  Prati,"  Handel  was  furi- 
ous, and,  rushing  into  the  trembling  Italian's  house,  shook 
the  music  in  his  face  with, "  You  tog  !  don't  I  know  better 
as  yourself  vat  you  shall  sing  ?  If  you  vi-11  not  sing  all  de 
song  vat  I  give  you,  I  vill  not  pay  you  ein  stiver !"  Care- 
stini afterward  found  that  Handel  was  right.  "  Verdi  Pra- 
ti" was  one  of  his  grands  succ&s.  When,  in  a  similar  spirit 
of  ill-timed  revolt,  the  famous  Cuzzoni  declined  to  sing 
"  Falsa  Immagine"  at  the  rehearsal,  Handel,  who  had  been 
waxing  hot  at  sundry  signs  of  insubordination,  exploded  at 
last.  He  flew  at  the  wretched  woman,  and,  seizing  her 
arm,  shook  her  like  a  rat.  "Ah !  I  always  knew  you  were 
a  fery  tevil,"  he  cried ;  "  and  I  shall  now  let  you  know  that 
I  am  Beelzebub,  de  prince  of  de  tevils !"  and,  dragging  her 
to  the  open  window,  was  just  on  the  point  of  pitching  her 
into  the  street,  when,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  she  re- 
canted. Although  Handel  sometimes  gained  his  point  in 
this  way,  yet  his  violence  occasionally  laid  him  open  to  the 
ridicule  and  contempt  of  small  minds. 

Persons  have  been  known  to  appreciate  that  indescriba- 
ble mixture  of  sound  produced  by  the  preparatory  tuning 
of  an  orchestra  with  the  organ  even  more  than  the  per- 
formance itself.  Handel  was  not  of  this  opinion.  After 
he  was  once  at  his  desk,  woe  betide  the  belated  fiddle  that 
scraped  a  fifth,  or  the  inexperienced  flute  that  attempted 
the  least  "  tootle."  Some  of  us  may  have  witnessed  the 
despair  of  a  professional  conductor  at  the  endless  and  insa- 
tiable tuning  of  an  amateur  orchestra.  Others  may  have 
watched  the  calm  distraction  of  an  accompanyist  at  having 
to  play  through  "Vaga  Luna"  to  some  one  not  more  than 
half  a  semitone  flat.  Others  may  have  seen  the  expression 
on  the  master's  face  when  in  some  pause  the  drum  comes 
in  with  a  confident,  but  perfectly  uncalled-for  "  rataplan ;" 


150  HANDEL. 

but  these  incidents  are  trivial  compared  with  the  scene 
which  it  is  now  our  painful  duty  to  describe. 

It  was  a  grand  night  at  the  Opera.  The  Prince  of  Wales 
had  arrived  in  good  time,  remembering  how  Handel  had 
been  annoyed  sometimes  at  his  coming  in  late.  The  in- 
struments, supposed  to  be  in  perfect  tune,  were  lying 
ready,  and  the  performers  entered.  Alas !  a  wag  had 
crept  in  before  them,  and  put  every  one  of  the  stringed  in- 
struments out  of  tune.  Handel  enters ;  and  now  all  the 
bows  are  raised  together,  and  at  the  given  beat  they  all 
start  off  con  spirito.  The  effect  must  have  been  as  if  ev- 
ery one  of  the  performers  had  been  musically  tumbling 
down  stairs.  The  unhappy  maestro  rushes  wildly  from 
his  place,  kicks  to  pieces  the  first  double  bass  that  opposes 
him,  and,  seizing  a  kettle-drum,  throws  it  violently  at  the 
leader  of  the  band.  The  effort  sends  his  full-bottomed  wig 
flying,  but  he  does  not  heed  it ;  and,  rushing  bareheaded  to 
the  foot-lights,  he  stands  for  a  few  moments  amid  the  roars 
of  the  house,  snorting  with  rage,  and  choked  with  passion. 

The  prince,  although  highly  amused,  soon  thought  this 
kind  of  entertainment  had  lasted  long  enough,  and,  going 
down  in  person,  he  besought  Handel  to  be  calm,  and  with 
much  difficulty  prevailed  on  him  to  resume  his  wig  and  his 
opera. 

Like  Burleigh's  nod,  Handel's  wig  seems  to  have  been  a 
sure  guide  to  Handel's  temper.  "  When  things  went  well 
at  the  oratorio,"  writes  Burney, "  it  had  a  certain  nod  or 
vibration  which  manifested  his  pleasure  and  satisfaction. 
Without  it,  nice  observers  were  certain  that  he  was  out  of 
humor."  The  ominous  sign  always  appeared  if,  when 
Handel  was  conducting  the  Prince  of  Wales's  concerts, 
any  of  the  ladies-in-waiting  talked  instead  of  listening. 
"  Hush !  hush !"  the  princess  would  say ;  "  don't  you  see 
Handel  is  in  a  passion  ?" 


CONTEMPORARY  COMPOSERS.  i$\ 

But  it  must  be  added  that  Handel,  who  knew  his  own 
hastiness,  was  often  willing  to  apologize ;  and  on  one  oc- 
casion, after  roundly  scolding  Burney,  then  a  mere  lad,  for 
what  turned  out  to  be  an  error  of  Smith,  the  copyist,  he  in- 
stantly made  the  amende  honorable.  "  I  peg  your  pardon ; 
I  am  a  very  odd  tog  ;  Meister  Schmidt  is  to  plame." 

Handel  paid  his  singers  what  in  those  days  were  consid- 
ered enormous  prices.  Senesino  and  Carestini  had  each 
£1200  for  the  season;  and  on  one  occasion,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  Cuzzoni  got  £2000.  Toward  the  close  of  what 
may  be  called  his  operatic  period,  most  of  the  singers,  and 
almost  all  the  nobles,  forsook  Handel,  and  supported  the 
greatest  singer  of  the  age,  Farinelli,  at  the  rival  house  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  But,  before  we  proceed  further,  we 
will  give  the  reader  a  glance  at  some  of  the  composers 
with  whom  Handel  came  into  immediate  contact,  and  with 
whose  genius,  effrontery,  or  cabals  he  was  forced  to  con- 
tend. 

To  GLUCK  I  have  devoted  a  separate  notice.  He  cross- 
ed Handel's  path  late,  and  was  but  slightly  connected  with 
him. 

Of  DOMENICO  SCARLATTI,  who  died  1757,  we  shall  not 
62.  say  much  more  here.  He  was  the  real  creator 

Contemporary  .«»•'«'-« 

Composers.  oi  the  advanced  harpsichord  school  of  the  pe- 
riod, as  much  as  Mendelssohn  was  of  the  advanced  piano- 
forte school  of  the  present  day.  But  his  range,  like  that 
of  Chopin,  was  limited,  and  he  wrote  little  besides  harpsi- 
chord music.  Those  who  care  to  examine  some  of  his  al- 
legros in  ^  time  will  be  surprised  to  find  the  prototypes 
of  many  of  the  tarantelles  written  in  such  profusion  for  the 
modern  piano-forte.  His  father,  the  celebrated  Alessandro 
Scarlatti,  was  the  greater  of  the  two.  He  wrote  a  hun- 
dred and  fifteen  operas,  besides  an  immense  mass  of  sacred 
music. 


152  HANDEL. 

Of  all  Handel's  rivals  BONONCINI  was  certainly  the  most 
formidable.  He  came  to  England  about  1720,  with  ARIOS- 
TI,  a  composer  of  merit.  When  something  or  other  in  the 
tone  and  spirit  of  Handel's  music  (not  then  recognized  as 
the  high  peculiar  tone  of  the  German  school)  made  people 
feel  that  he  was  quite  different  from  the  beloved  Italians, 
factions  began  to  form  themselves,  and  the  Handelists, 
backed  by  the  Prince  of  Wales,  ranged  themselves  against 
the  Bononcinists,  supported  by  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 
and  most  of  the  nobility.  A  whole  chorus  of  popular 
writers  rehearsed  the  sublime  merits  of  the  Italian  school, 
while  Pope,  Arbuthnot,  and  a  few  others  stood  by  Handel. 

Exactly  the  same  drama  repeated  itself  with  a  different 
mise  en  sc&ne,  and  other  actors,  about  thirty  years  later. 
Paris  was  then  the  seat  of  war :  Gluck  was  the  German 
hero,  supported  by  Marie  Antoinette ;  Piccini  fought  for 
Italy,  under  the  meretricious  banners  of  the  Du  Barry ; 
PAbb6  Arnault  plied  his  dignified  pen  for  Gluck,  while 
Marmontel  answered  with  daring  and  unscrupulous  sar- 
casm for  Piccini.  Even  before  the  open  breach  the  paral- 
lel holds  good;  for  as  Gluck  and  Piccini  were  each  en- 
gaged to  compose  an  opera  (Iphigenia)  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, so  Bononcini,  Ariosti,  and  Handel  were  associated  to- 
gether in  the  composition  of  Muzio  Sccevola  /  and,  more- 
over, as  Gluck  was  clearly  victorious,  so  was  Handel. 
Here,  however,  the  parallel  ceases.  Gluck  left  Paris  in 
possession  of  the  Italian  opera ;  Bononcini,  to  our  honor 
be  it  said,  left  London  in  possession  of  German  oratorio. 

Between  two  giants  like  Handel  and  Bononcini,  poor 
ABIOSTI  seems  to  have  been  crushed  to  pieces.  Originally 
he  had  been  a  Dominican  monk.  His  temperament  was 
gentle ;  he  loved  music,  and  wrote  compositions  much  ad- 
mired in  his  own  country ;  but  he  should  never  have  met 
either  the  Achilles  or  Hector  of  his  day.  His  feeble  light, 


CONTEMPORARY  COMPOSERS.  153 

that  would  have  illumined  a  smaller  sphere  with  a  mild 
and  gentle  lustre,  paled  at  once  before  the  mighty  sun  of 
Handel,  and  the  continuous  blaze  of  Bononcini's  fireworks. 
His  Act  ofMuzio  Sccevola  (1721)  was  voted  the  worst — a 
decision  in  which  he  fully  acquiesced.  In  1730  it  was  not 
worth  while  to  compose  any  more ;  his  place  was  filled ; 
the  public  would  hardly  listen  to  his  performances  on  the 
viol  de  gamba — an  instrument  which  he  himself  had  intro- 
duced into  England  in  1716.  A  humble-minded  and  inof- 
fensive man,  as  graceful  as  a  woman,  and  nearly  as  timid, 
'he  lapsed  into  silence  and  poverty,  and  died  neglected,  but 
not  before  he  had  been  forgotten. 

The  career  in  England  of  the  brilliant,  but  arrogant  Bo- 
noncini,  came  to  a  fitting  end  in  1733.  A  certain  madrigal 
of  his  was  discovered  to  be  note  for  note  the  composition 
of  a  Signer  LOTTI  in  Italy.  Lotti  was  communicated  with 
by  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music.  The  matter  was  made 
public,  and  Bononcini,  not  caring  to  plead  guilty,  left  the 
country,  never  to  return,  amid  the  jubilations  of  the  Han- 
delists.  The  defeated  maestro  traveled  through  Europe, 
still  pouring  out  from  his  astonishingly  facile  brain  things 
new  and  old,  and  at  last  fell  into  the  hands  of  an  impostor, 
who  professed  to  have  discovered  the  philosopher's  stone. 
He  died  soon  afterward  in  obscurity  and  solitude,  having 
outlived  his  popularity  and  lost  his  character. 

Not  the  least  of  Handel's  rivals  was  PORPOEA,  or,  as 
Handel  used  to  call  him, "  old  Borbora."  Without  the  ro- 
mantic fire  of  Bononcini,  the  grace  of  Ariosti,  or  the  orig- 
inality of  Handel,  he  represented  the  high  and  dry  Italian 
school.  He  was  a  great  singing-master,  a  learned  contra- 
puntist, famous  throughout  Italy.  He  was  invited  over  in 
1733  by  the  Italian  faction  in  London,  under  the  patronage 
of  Marlborough  and  Lord  Cooper.  His  opera  of  Ariadne 
was  brought  out  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  and  was  a  great 


154  HANDEL. 

success.  But  when,  later  on,  he  had  the  audacity  to  oppose 
to  Handel's  oratorios  his  own  David^  his  failure  was  con- 
spicuous, and  he  was  candid  enough  to  admit  his  great  ri- 
val's superiority  in  sacred  music.  He  thought  no  one's 
operas  equal  to  his  own.  He  wrote  fifty  of  them  ;  and  had 
the  distinguished  honor,  when  an  old  man,  of  teaching 
young  HAYDN,  who,  in  return,  cleaned  his  boots  and  pow- 
dered his  wig  for  him. 

Among  other  Italians  who  were  as  thorns  in  Handel's 
side  we  may  mention  HASSK,  a  man  of  real  genius,  whose 
chamber  music  is  still  esteemed  by  amateurs.  AERIGONI 
came  over  with  Porpora,  and  helped  to  supply  the  Italian 
programmes  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  Theatre. 

We  must  not  forget  to  mention  one  or  two  other  celeb- 
rities— Dr.  PEPUSCH,  the  Prussian,  and  Dr.  GREENE,  the 
Englishman.  Pepusch  held  the  first  place  in  England  be- 
fore the  arrival  of  Handel,  and  made  a  distinct  sphere  for 
himself  even  when  Handel  and  the  Italian  composers  were 
in  their  glory.  His  Beggar^  Opera  killed  every  thing  at 
the  time,  and  still  keeps  possession  of  the  stage.  Pepusch 
may  be  said  to  have  understood  the  merits  of  the  English 
ballad.  They  are  not  considerable ;  but,  whenever  the  pub- 
lic taste  gets  jaded  with  Italian  sirup  or  German  solids, 
English  ballads  have  ever  been  found  useful  as  a  kind  of 
fillip.  Pepusch  was  a  learned,  but  not  a  very  original  com- 
poser, and  his  skill  in  arranging  and  adapting,  especially 
the  popular  songs  of  the  day,  was  greater  than  his  skill  in 
creating.  He  had  the  sense  to  bow  before  Handel,  and  the 
grace  to  subscribe  to  his  works. 

Dr.  BOYCE,  Dr.  ARNE,  and  Dr.  GREENE  were  all  com- 
posers of  the  day:  no  lover  of  cathedral  music  is  ignorant 
of  their  names ;  and  many  of  Boyce's  anthems  have  become 
regular  items  in  the  week's  services.  Boyce  was  incom- 
parably the  greatest,  Arne  was  more  graceful  than  power- 


CONTEMPORARY  COMPOSERS.  155 

ful,  while  the  name  of  Greene  is  usually  more  respected 
than  loved  by  the  frequenters  of  choral  services.  His  re- 
lations with  Handel  and  Bononcini  are  hardly  creditable 
to  him.  He  seems  to  have  flattered  each  in  turn.  He  up- 
held Bononcini  in  the  great  madrigal  controversy,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  wearied  Handel  by  his  repeated  visits.  The 
great  Saxon  easily  saw  through  the  flatteries  of  a  man  who 
was  in  reality  an  ambitious  rival,  and  joked  about  him,  not 
always  in  the  best  taste.  When  he  was  told  that  Greene 
was  giving  concerts  at  the  "  Devil  Tavern,"  near  Temple 
Bar, "  Ah !"  he  exclaimed, "  mein  poor  friend  Toctor  Greene 
— so  he  is  gone  to  de  Tevil !" 

On  one  occasion  we  are  told  that  Greene  had  left  a  new 
solo  anthem  of  his  with  Handel,  who  good-naturedly  asked 
him  to  breakfast  the  next  morning.  The  great  German 
was  most  affable,  and  discoursed  on  every  possible  subject, 
but  all  Greene's  attempts  to  lead  the  conversation  round 
to  the  anthem  proved  futile.  At  last,  growing  desperate, 
he  interrupted  his  host's  flowing  talk  with, 

"  But  my  anthem,  sir — how  do  you  like  my  anthem  ?" 

"  Oh,  your  anthem  ?    Veil,  sir,  I  did  tink  it  wanted  air." 

"Wanted  air,  sir?" 

"  Yes,  sare — air — so  I  did  hang  it  out  of  de  vindow  !" 

It  must  be  noticed  how  entirely  English  music  was 
63.       swamped  by  German  and  Italian  masters.    It  is  an 

Music  m  J 

England,  unwelcome  fact  to  many,  but  it  must  not  be  over- 
looked. Much  offense  has  been  taken  at  the  phrase, "  The 
English  are  not  a  musical  people."  That  phrase,  interpret- 
ed to  mean  "  the  English  do  not  care  for  music,"  or  "  they 
can  not  be  got  to  like  good  music,"  or  "  they  do  not  make 
good  executive  artists,"  is  certainly  untrue,  and  we  should 
never  use  it  in  any  of  the  above  senses ;  but  if  a  musical 
nation  means  a  nation  with  a  musical  tradition  and  school 


156  HANDEL. 

of  its  own — a  nation  not  only  in  possession  of  old  popular 
melodies,  whose  origin  it  is  always  difficult  and  sometimes 
impossible  to  trace,  but  also  possessing  a  development  of 
the  musical  art  distinct  in  character  from  that  of  all  other 
nations,  and  subject  to  the  inspiration  of  national  genius — 
then  we  fear  that  England  can  scarcely  yet  be  said  to  have 
established  her  claim  to  be  called  a  musical  nation.  It  is 
hardly  possible  not  to  see  that  the  facts  of  history  bear  out 
the  assertion.  As  the  religion  of  England  was  Roman  up 
to  the  time  of  Henry  VIIL,  Church  music  in  England,  that 
came  along  with  Rome's  ecclesiastical  system,  drew  its 
chief  inspiration  from  Italy.  In  so  far  as  there  was  a  pop- 
ular movement  running  side  by  side  with  the  ecclesiastical, 
it  is  still  more  easy  to  trace  that  popular  movement  to  the 
Trouveres  and  Troubadours  of  Provence,  who  wandered  all 
over  Europe,  and  wrhose  very  names  betray  their  foreign 
origin.  If,  however,  we  admit  that  Tallis,  and  Farrant,  and 
Byrd  founded  an  English  school,  and  that  Morley,  Ward, 
and  Weelkes,  in  their  madrigals  (observe,  the  very  word 
madrigal  is  an  Italian  one),  and  Orlando  Gibbons,  contin- 
ued the  good  work,  it  remains  to  be  explained  why  Hum- 
phrey deliberately  chose  the  French  school  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  H. — a  school  of  music  which  was  enthusiastically 
received  in  England — and  why  Purcell  (died  1695),  origin- 
al, prolific,  and,  above  all,  eclectic,  had  no  followers  at  all. 
The  fact  is,  the  so-called  English  school  had  not  life  enough 
to  survive  the  paralysis  of  the  Civil  Wars,  nor  memory 
enough  to  continue  its  own  tradition  ;  and  France  and  Italy 
alternately  or  jointly  contended  for  the  honor  of  carrying 
off  the  musical  prizes  in  England,  until  Germany,  like  a 
very  David,  arose  and  slew  both  the  lion  and  the  bear. 

We  do  not  observe,  then,  from  looking  back,  that  En- 
gland has  had  a  great  musical  past ;  what  we  do  see  is  a 
constant  taking  root,  and  springing  up,  and  withering,  a 


MUSIC  IN  ENGLAND.  157 

certain  appetite,  succeeded  by  nausea  and  repose.  With 
the  growing  passion  for  good — in  other  words,  for  whole- 
some food,  this  state  of  things  may  perhaps  cease.  Once, 
we  know,  she  was  distinguished  among  the  nations  for  her 
commercial  apathy.  That  apathy  has  passed  away.  There 
was  a  time  before  even  Germany  had  developed  her  mu- 
sical genius.  Italy  and  France  were  long  the  leading  com- 
posers of  the  world.  That  time  has  passed  away,  and  En- 
gjand  herself  may  even  now  be  about  to  rise  and  claim  a 
position  among  musical  nations.  Meanwhile,  let  us  be  just 
to  the  patrons  of  music  in  England.  It  is  the  fashion  to 
say  that  native  talent  was  crushed  by  the  Hanoverian 
Georges,  who  showed  favor  only  to  German  musicians. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  native  talent 
was  for  long  protected  in  England.  Italian  music  was  not 
preferred  to  English  until  the  two  met  in  a  fair  fight,  and 
Italy  won.  Nor  was  Germany  installed  supreme  until  she 
had  beaten  Italian  opera  out  of  the  field  with  German  ora- 
torio. 

For  many  years  great  efforts  were  made  to  encourage 
English  talent.  As  late  as  George  IL's  reign  only  an  En- 
glishman could  hold  the  place  of  king's  organist.  Almost 
every  English  composer  of  any  note  was  a  Doctor  of  Mu- 
sic, and  installed  in  some  place  of  honor  and  emolument. 
The  cathedral  choirs  were  superintended  by  Englishmen ; 
nor  was  there  any  effort  made  to  suppress  the  ballads  they 
wrote,  or  to  keep  their  operas  off  the  stage.  The  Beggars' 
Opera  was  full  of  English  songs,  and  Pepusch,  who,  al- 
though a  Prussian,  was  a  naturalized  English  subject,  col- 
lected and  arranged  large  quantities  of  them.  But  En- 
gland originated  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing.  Pistochi  in- 
vented the  singing-school ;  the  Amatis,  Stradiuarius,  and 
his  followers,  lay  at  the  foundation  of  modern  instrumental 
music.  It  is  to  Italy  again  we  have  to  turn  for  the  opera: 


158  HANDEL. 

while  Handel  gave  us  the  highest  form  of  the  oratorio,  and 
Haydn  may  be  fairly  said  to  have  created  the  symphony. 

But  to  return  to  Handel.     We  left  him  playing  Orlando 

M  to  empty  houses  in  1733.  But  an  event  had  al- 
Oratonos.  rea(jv  occurred  which  was  destined  ultimately  to 
turn  the  tide  in  his  favor,  and  which  struck  the  key-note 
of  his  immortality.  We  know  that  the  MS.  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  "  Waverley"  was  laid  aside  for  many  years ;  so  was 
the  MS.  of  Handel's  first  oratorio,  Esther.  It  wras  com- 
posed as  early  as  1720  for  the  Duke  of  Chandos  at  Can- 
nons. Eleven  years  afterward  (1731),  Bernard  Gates,  Roy- 
al Chapel-master  of  St.  James's,  got  it  up  in  private  with 
his  choir.  Its  fame  soon  spread,  and  a  society  called  the 
Philharmonic,  as  also  the  Academy  of  Music,  produced  it 
on  a  larger  scale  under  the  direction  of  Gates.  Handel 
seems  to  have  thoroughly  revised  it  himself,  and  in  1732 
we  read  that  "Hester,  an  English  oratorio,  was  performed 
six  times,  and  very  full." 

To  us  it  is  tolerably  clear  that  there  was  something  in 
the  form  as  well  as  in  the  subjects  of  oratorio  music  espe- 
cially appropriate  to  the  genius  of  Handel ;  and  yet  such 
were  the  force  of  habit  and  the  tyranny  of  fashion  that  it 
was  not  until  1741 — twenty-one  years  after  the  composi- 
tion of  Esther — that  Handel  definitely,  upon  repeated  fail- 
ures, abandoned  the  composition  of  Italian  operas. 

Without  seeing  these  works  represented,  it  may  be  dim- 
cult  to  decide  why  they  failed.  One  thing  is  certain,  that 
the  better  the  music,  the  less  did  it  suit  the  operatic  tastes 
of  the  age.  The  most  popular  parts  were  the  most  puerile. 
Compare  the  silly,  but  celebrated  march  in  Rinaldo  (1711) 
with  the  splendid,  but  little  known  march  in  Scipio  (1726). 
Perhaps  the  singers  did  not  follow  the  development  of  his 
genius,  and  got  tired  of  him  as  he  marched  on  with  colos- 


ORATORIOS.  159 

sal  strides  toward  the  music  of  the  future.  We  know  that 
Cuzzoni  and  Carestini  both  refused  to  sing  some  of  his 
finest  airs.  Perhaps  the  public  grew  tired  of  the  singers. 
At  all  events,  Farinelli,  the  greatest  of  them,  left  England 
in  1737  rather  than  sing  to  an  audience  of  five-and-thirty 
pounds.  But  the  best  reason  is  indicated  by  Colley  Gib- 
ber, and  explains  why  Italian  opera  could  never  satisfy 
the*  requirements  of  the  great  German  composer,  or  be  any 
thing  more  than  an  artificial  luxury  with  the  English  peo- 
ple :  "  The  truth  is,  that  this  kind  of  entertainment  is  en- 
tirely sensual." 

As  Handel's  instincts  ripened  his  intellect  also  devel- 
oped. Perhaps  he  may  have  felt  that  dramatic  action  and 
musical  emotion  were  two  things  that  ought  not  to  be 
mixed  up  together  by  making  actors  sing ;  and  assuredly 
in  the  cantata  and  oratorio  he  attained  a  more  satisfactory 
and  philosophical  form  by  presenting  a  drama  to  the  mind 
clothed  with  musical  emotion,  but  not  confounded  with 
dramatic  action.  Incidents  can  be  acted,  and  incidents 
can  be  described  in  song,  but  incidents  can  not  be  sung 
except  in  the  way  of  description,  simply  because  music 
does  not  express  acts,  but  the  emotions  which  underlie  ac- 
tion. Probably  Handel  did  not  explain  his  reasons  for 
abandoning  Italian  opera  thus ;  but  the  fact  that  his  ope- 
ras are  forgotten,  while  Acis  and  Galatea  and  the  Messiah 
remain,  shows  that  in  these  last  he  had  hit  upon  a  form 
sufficiently  philosophical  to  outlive  all  the  operas  of  the 
day,  and  one  which  they  did  not  possess. 

From  1732  to  1740  he  presents  the  familiar  spectacle  of 
a  man  of  genius  struggling  with  the  tendencies  of  his  age 
— half  sailing,  half  drifting,  but  gaining  strength  with  ev- 
ery passage  of  conflict.  In  those  twelve  memorable  years 
he  composed  sixteen  operas  and  five  oratorios.  After  1740 
he  composed  no  operas,  and  from  1741  to  1751  he  com- 


160  HANDEL. 

posed  eleven  oratorios,  beginning  with  the  Messiah  and 
ending  with  Jephtha.  The  success  of  the  long-neglected 
Esther  induced  Handel  to  compose  Deborah  in  1733,  and 
the  success  of  Deborah  awoke  all  the  dogs  that  had  gone 
to  sleep  during  the  failure  of  his  operas  and  the  decline  of 
his  popularity. 

"The  rise  and  progress  of  Mr.  Handel,"  writes  one  paper, 
"arc  too  well  known  for  me  to  relate.  Let  it  suffice  to 
say  that  he  has  grown  so  insolent  upon  the  sudden  and 
undeserved  increase  of  both,  that  he  thinks  that  nothing 
ought  to  oppose  his  imperious  and  extravagant  will."  We 
are  then  treated  to  a  description  of  "  the  thing  called  an 
oratorio,"  and  informed  that  "  the  fairest  breasts  were  fired 
with  indignation  against  this  new  imposition." 

The  Italian  faction  opposed  him  with  close  and  serried 
65  ranks,  and  all  the  malcontents,  from  whatever  cause, 
Cabals.  desert,e<3  from  Handel's  camp  and  joined  Bononcini. 
It  does  not  appear  that  opposition  improved  a  tempera- 
ment naturally  hot,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  as 
Handel  went  on  in  life  he  lost  friends  and  made  enemies. 
He  quarreled  with  the  celebrated  Senesino,  who,  of  course, 
joined  his  rival ;  and  many  of  the  nobles,  who  were  accus- 
tomed to  treat  musicians  like  servants,  and  even  to  cane 
them,  were  so  taken  aback  at  the  great  German's  haughty 
and  overbearing  demeanor,  that  they  decided  in  favor  of 
the  astute  and  servile  Italian,  who  lived  in  Lady  Godol- 
phin's  house  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  large  pension. 

No  slander  was  spared.  Handel  was  a  swindler,  he  was 
a  false  friend,  a  glutton,  a  drunkard,  a  raving  idiot,  a  pro- 
fane fellow,  to  whom  not  even  Holy  Writ  was  sacred.  The 
very  idea  of  setting  Deborah  to  music  scandalized  deeply 
the  Pietists,  who  applauded  loudly  the  operas  of  Bononcini 
and  the  canzonets  of  ArrigonL 


CABALS.  161 

Rolli  satirized  him,  and  Goupy  caricatured  him ;  his  per- 
son was  voted  ridiculous,  and  his  innovations  monstrous. 
People  complained  of  the  loud  effects  produced  by  his  new 
brass  instruments,  his  heavy  choruses,  and  his  numberless 
violins.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  Handel's  orches- 
tra as  poor ;  but,  in  fact,  with  the  exception  of  the  clario- 
net, cornet-a-piston,  and  ophicleide,  it  comprised  all  the  in- 
struments now  used,  and  several  extinct  ones  besides — i.  e., 
violetta  marina,  Theorbo  lute,  etc.  He  also  wrote  for  ser- 
pents, although  few  could  then  play  them ;  and  we  are  told 
of  a  bassoon  sixteen  feet  high,  which  only  one  man  could 
play :  this  was  called  a  grand  double  bassoon  (contrafa- 
gotto),  and  was  made  by  Mr.  Stanesby,  the  Distin  of  the 
period. 

Under  these  circumstances,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
Bold  Briareus  with  a  hundred  hands  abused  and  laughed 
at.  Fielding,  in  "  Tom  Jones,"  has  the  following  amusing 
hit  at  the  taste  of  the  period.  "  It  was  Mt  Western's  cus- 
tom every  afternoon,  as  soon  as  he  was  drunk,  to  hear  his 
daughter  play  on  the  harpsichord ;  for  he  was  a  great  lover 
of  music,  and,  perhaps,  had  he  lived  in  town,  might  have 
passed  for  a  connoisseur,  for  he  always  excepted  against 
the  finest  compositions  of  Mr.  Handel."  Even  his  friends 
complained  that  he  "  tore  their  ears  to  pieces ;"  and  one 
writes, "  I  expected  his  house  to  be  blown  down  with  his 
artificial  wind;  at  another  time  the  sea  overflowed  its 
banks  and  swallowed  us  up.  But,  beyond  every  thing,  his 
thunder  was  most  intolerable ;  I  shall  never  get  the  horrid 
rumbling  out  of  my  head." 

So  much  had  it  become  the  fashion  to  criticise  the  new 
effects,  that  some  years  later  Mr.  Sheridan  makes  one  of  his 
characters  let  off  a  pistol  simply  to  shock  the  audience, 
and  makes  him  say  in  a  stage  whisper  to  the  gallery, "  This 
hint,  gentlemen,  I  took  from  HandeL" 
11 


162  HANDEL. 

In  1733,  Esther  and  Deborah,  together  with  Floridante 
ee.        (1723)  and  Orlando  (1732),  were  the  chief  attrac- 

Handelat    \ 

oxford,  tions  at  the  Haymarket.  On  July  5th  of  that  year 
we  find  "  one  Handell,  a  foreigner  (who,  they  say,  was  born 
at  Hanover),  was  desired  to  come  to  Oxford  to  perform  in 
music."  The  same  writer  goes  on  to  say  "that  Handel, 
with  his  lowsy  crew,  a  great  number  of  foreign  fiddlers, 
had  a  performance  for  his  own  benefit  in  the  theatre. 
KB.— His  book  (not  worth  Id.)  he  sells  for  Is."  The 
grave  Dons  seemed  rather  perplexed  at  the  whole  per- 
formance. "  This,"  says  one, "  is  an  innovation,"  but  every 
one  paid  their  5s.,  and  went  to  "  try  how  a  little  fiddling 
would  sit  upon  them ;"  and  so  great  was  the  crush  to  get 
in,  that,  "notwithstanding  the  barbarous  and  inhuman 
combination  of  such  a  parcel  of  unconscionable  scamps,  he 
disposed  of  most  of  his  tickets." 

Before  "  Handel  and  his  lowsy  crew"  left  Oxford,  the 
victory  was  won.  Athalie  was  received  "  with  vast  ap- 
plause by  an  audience  of  3700  persons."  Some  of  his  Uni- 
versity admirers,  who  appear  to  have  thought  then,  as 
now,  that  any  University  honor  was  of  priceless  value, 
urged  Handel  to  accept  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Music,  for 
which  he  would,  of  course,  have  to  pay  a  small  fee.  We 
can  understand  the  good  Dons  opening  their  eyes  at  his 
characteristic  reply :  "  Vat  te  tevil  I  trow  my  money  away 
for  dat  vich  the  blockhead  vish  ?  I  no  vant !" 

When  Handel  opened  the  Haymarket  in  the  autumn  of 
67.         the  same  year  (1733),  he  did  so  as  manager  on 

More  Operas      . 

and  cabals,  his  own  account.  His  recent  successes  seem  to 
have  inspired  him  with  confidence,  and  he  was  slow  to  be- 
lieve that  the  public  had  done  with  his  Italian  operas. 
He  made  great  efforts  to  write  in  a  popular  style.  The 
Ariadne  (1733)  was  avowedly  written  to  outbid  the  Ital- 


MORE  OPERAS  AND  CABALb.  153 

ian  composers,  and  regain  the  favor  of  the  faithless  nobles. 
He  plied  them  alternately  with  quality  and  quantity,  and 
in  the  following  year  produced  several  patchwork  operas, 
into  which  many  favorite  Italian  airs  were  introduced  to 
please  either  the  singers  or  the  public.  Then  comes  an  al- 
legorical poem  in  Festa  (1734).  After  which  we  have  a 
relapse  into  instrumental  music,  e.  g.,  the  Hautboy  con- 
certos (1734),  which  are  more  like  symphonies  than  con- 
certos; and,  above  all,  the  famous  "  six  fugues  or  volunta- 
ries" (1735) — a  species  of  composition  in  which  Handel 
must  own  his  superior  in  Sebastien  Bach.  Then  we  have 
a  ballet  written  for  a  French  danseuse  newly  arrived. 
Gods  in  the  clouds  and  out  of  the  clouds  were  to  appear — 
Jupiter  with  plenty  of  thunder,  and  actually  "  two  Cu- 
pids." What  could  be  more  attractive  ?  The  Cupids  and 
the  danseuse  had  to  be  lugged  into  the  Ariodante  (1735) ; 
after  which,  in  the  same  year,  was  composed  and  produced 
Alcina,  which  contained  thirty-two  airs,  one  duet,  and  no 
less  than  four  little  choruses.  Then  comes,  as  it  were,  a 
sudden  revulsion  of  feeling.  Opera  is  once  more  abandon- 
ed, and  Athaliah,  with  parts  of  Esther  and  Deborah,  is  ad- 
vertised. 

But,  notwithstanding  all  his  efforts,  the  Italian  opposi- 
tion at  Lincoln's  Inn  Theatre  grew  stronger  every  day. 
Almost  all  the  good  singers  had  joined  Porpora,  Arrigoni, 
and  Bononcini.  Farinelli,  whom  the  fashionable  world 
raved  about ;  Cnzzoni,  whose  very  dresses  were  copied  by 
the  court  ladies ;  Senesino,  whose  departure  for  Italy  cast 
a  gloom  over  the  London  season ;  Montagnana,  considered 
by  some  the  most  finished  artist  that  Italy  ever  produced 
— all  sung  at  the  opposition  house  against  Bold  Briareus, 
in  order  to  crush  him  entirely.  The  nobles  sent  for  the 
celebrated  Hasse ;  but  the  great  man,  with  becoming  mod- 
esty, exclaimed, "  Oh  !  then  Handel  is  dead  ?"  and  on  being 


164  HANDEL. 

told  he  was  yet  alive,  refused  indignantly  to  go  over  in  op- 
position to  one  so  much  his  superior.  It  is  strange  to  no- 
tice how,  partly  by  the  progress  of  his  genius,  and  partly 
by  the  force  of  circumstances,  Handel  was  being  drifted 
out  of  Italian  opera  at  the  very  moment  when  he  tried  to 
tighten  his  grasp  on  it. 

The  free  introduction  of  choral  and  instrumental  music 
into  opera  offended  the  singers  and  retarded  the  action  of 
the  drama  in  the  eyes  of  the  audience.  Yet  it  was  by 
these  unpopular  characteristics  that  the  public  mind  was 
being  trained  to  understand  a  species  of  composition  which, 
from  the  first,  seems  to  have  proved  attractive  under  the 
form  of  the  cantata  and  the  oratorio. 

It  was  in  1736  that  Carestini,  the  only  great  Italian 
singer  who  had  stood  by  Handel,  left  for  Italy,  and  with 
his  departure  all  further  operas  at  the  Haymarket  became 
impossible.  It  was  in  that  year  also  that  Handel,  once 
more  left  to  follow  the  bent  of  his  own  genius,  revived  Ads 
and  Esther,  and  composed  the  music  to  Alexander's  Feast. 
However,  in  April,  1736,  the  Italian  singer  Conti  was  got 
over,  and  another  Italian  opera  was  tried — Atalanta. 

The  piece  was  in  honor  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  on  the 
occasion  of  his  marriage  with  a  princess  of  Saxe-Gotha ; 
and  was  followed,  in  the  same  month,  by  a  light  wedding 
anthem,  written  down  to  their  royal  highnesses'  taste. 
But  the  flicker  of  popularity  which  attended  these  two 
works  came  too  late  to  restore  the  fortunes  of  a  lost  game, 
and  although  Handel  stood  out  stoutly  to  the  last,  he  must 
have  been  aware  of  the  impending  ruin.  In  1 737  Arminitu 
appeared.  Burney  says,  "It  had  few  captivating  airs." 
At  any  rate,  it  failed.  Justin  (1738)  followed;  and  al- 
though it  is  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  Handel's  most 
agreeable  compositions,  it  had  but  five  representations. 
The  master  was  getting  worn  and  depressed  with  exertion, 


A  FUNERAL  ANTHEM.  165 

disappointment,  and  failure.  The  public  seemed  tired  of 
every  thing.  The  Italian  singers  had  not  only  deserted  the 
Haymarket,  but  were  again  beginning  to  leave  the  country. 

In  eight  years  Handel  had  dissipated  a  fortune  of  £10,000 
on  Italian  opera,  and  on  the  fall  of  Berenice  he  was  forced 
to  suspend  payment,  and  closed  the  theatre. 

The  rival  house  lasted  but  a  few  months  longer.  Its 
pride  and  success  had  been,  after  all,  the  pride  of  party 
spirit  and  the  vamped-up  success  of  a  clique,  and  when 
Handel  gave  in,  the  game  seemed  hardly  worth  the  candle 
— the  candle  having  cost  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough  and 
her  friends  as  nearly  as  possible  £12,000. 

In  April,  1737,  the  daily  papers  announced  that  Mr.Han> 
es.       del,  who  had  been  indisposed  with  rheumatism, 

A  Funeral  T     _        ,  ..  .       ,       _.     „ 

Anthem,  was  recovering.  In  October  we  read  in  the  Uaily 
Post  that  Mr.  Handel, "  the  composer  of  Italian  music,  was 
hourly  expected  from  Aix,  greatly  recovered  in  health." 
All  sorts  of  rumors  had  been  afloat.  Handel  had  left  the 
country,  some  said  mad — others  dying — all  knew  in  debt. 
But  the  iron  frame  with  the  iron  will  lasted  out.  Handel 
did  not  return  from  Aix-la-Chapelle,  like  Mozart  from  Ba- 
den, to  write  his  own  Requiem,  but  some  one's  else. 

Queen  Caroline's  failing  health  had  long  been  the  talk 
of  town,  and  it  was  commonly  said  that  anxiety  and  wea- 
riness of  spirit  were  rapidly  hastening  her  to  the  grave. 

When  the  last  hour  had  struck,  Handel  was  called  in  to 
make  music  for  the  king's  sorrow,  and  the  Funeral  Anthem 
was  performed  in  Henry  VH.'s  chapel  in  the  presence  of  an 
immense  concourse  of  people.  The  whole  of  this  magnifi- 
cent anthem  was  afterward  introduced  into  the  oratorio  of 
Saul  as  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  and 
the  whole  of  it  is,  on  second  thoughts,  crossed  out  in  the 
MS.  of  that  oratorio. 


166  HANDEL. 

With  an  inexplicable  tenacity  of  purpose,  Handel  in- 
69.        stantly  resumed  the  composition  of  opera  music 

Failure  and  ,  J, 

Success.  which  had  only  just  now  ruined  him,  and  Jlara- 
mondo  was  immediately  produced  with  La  Francesina  and 
the  famous  Cafarelli  Duca  di  Santi  Dorato,  who  thought 
himself  the  greatest  singer  in  the  world,  and  wrote  out- 
side his  chateau  in  Italy, "  Amphion  Thebas,  Ego  Domum." 
Faramondo  failed.  On  the  25th  of  February,  1728,  came 
Alexander  Severus,  a  pasticcio  of  favorite  airs — that  failed. 
Two  months  afterward,  Xerxes,  with  a  comic  man  in  it, 
failed.  The  work  does  not  flow  easily  in  spite  of  the  com- 
edy, and  the  scored  and  blotted  MS.  attests  to  this  day  the 
agitations  of  a  mind  ill  at  ease  and  fevered  with  anxiety. 
In  fact,  the  house  was  empty — the  band  grumbled — the 
singers  were  not  paid — and  somewhere  about  March  of  the 
same  year  one  Signer  Strada  threatened  to  arrest  Handel 
for  debt.  At  this  crisis  his  friends  induced  him  to  give  a 
great  benefit  concert,  which  brought  him  in — some  said — 
£1500,  and  which  enabled  him  to  pay  many  of  his  debts. 

In  his  adversity  he  was  not  without  consolations.  His 
creditors  believed  in  his  sterling  integrity,  and  were,  as  a 
rule,  very  patient  with  him.  The  king  paid  him  well  for 
his  work,  and  at  a  time  when  the  nobles  forsook  him,  his 
royal  patron  went  steadily  to  all  the  oratorios.  George 
IL  taught  the  youthful  Prince  of  Wales,  afterward  George 
III.,  to  love  his  music.  Southey  tells  us  that  Handel  ask- 
ed the  boy,  then  quite  a  child,  who  was  listening  very  ear- 
nestly to  his  playing,  if  he  liked  the  music,  and  when  the 
little  prince  expressed  his  delight,  "  A  good  boy  !  a  good 
boy  !"  cried  Handel ;  "  you  shall  protect  my  fame  when  I 
am  dead."  Little  did  the  young  prince  know  how  much 
he  would  require  in  later  years  all  the  solaces  that  can  be 
derived  from  art  and  light  literature  to  soothe  him  in  the 
lucid  intervals  of  his  lonely  aberration.  Sir  Walter  Scott's 


FAIL  USE  AND  SUCCESS.  \  37 

novels  and  Handel's  music  proved  the  chief  resources  of 
his  old  age. 

There  were  many  besides  the  king  who  never  for  a  mo- 
ment despaired  of  Handel;  among  them  were  Gay,  Arbuth- 
not,  Hughes,  Colley  Gibber,  Pope,  Fielding  Hogarth,  and 
Smollett.  These  were  the  men  who  kept  their  fingers  on 
the  pulse  of  the  age :  they  gauged  Handel  accurately,  and 
they  were  not  wrong.  At  a  time  when  others  jeered  at 
his  oratorios,  these  men  wrote  them  up ;  when  the  tide  of 
fine  society  ebbed,  and  left  Handel  high  and  dry  on  the 
boards  of  a  deserted  theatre,  they  occupied  the  pit ;  when 
he  gave  his  benefit  concert  they  bought  the  tickets,  and 
when  his  operas  failed  they  immediately  subscribed  and 
had  them  engraved. 

And  it  is  curious  to  notice  how  true  the  really  popular 
instinct  was  to  Handel.  It  was  the  nobles,  not  the  people, 
who  refused  to  hear  his  oratorios  and  complained  of  his 
instrumentation  ;  but  when  for  a  time  he  was  forced  to 
abandon  opera,  and  to  devote  himself  to  oratorio  and  cab- 
inet music,  the  tide  of  adverse  fortune  received  an  instant 
check.  His  attention  being  drawn  off  opera,  he  poured 
forth  organ  concertos  and  pieces  for  stringed  instruments, 
which  rapidly  spread  through  the  kingdom.  About  this 
time  he  seems  to  have  grown  very  popular  as  a  player, 
and  whenever  an  oratorio  was  performed  he  gave  what 
were  called  "  entertainments"  on  the  organ.  It  was  soon 
found  that  Mr.  Handel's  music  was  good  bait  for  the  holi- 
day makers  of  the  period  as  well  as  for  the  men  of  genius. 
The  proprietor  of  Yauxhall  was  so  impressed  with  Han- 
del's usefulness  in  bringing  grist  to  his  mill,  that  he  had 
his  music  constantly  played  there,  and  erected  a  statue  to 
the  great  man  at  his  own  expense.  The  manager  of  the 
Marylebone  Gardens  also  set  up  a  band  and  played  the 
people  in  with  similar  effect.  Handel  himself  was  some- 


168  HANDEL. 

times  to  be  seen  there  with  a  friend.  "  Come,  Mr.  Foun- 
tayne,"  said  he  one  day, "  let  us  sit  down  and  listen  to  this 
piece ;  I  want  to  know  your  opinion  of  it."  The  old  cler- 
gyman (for  such  he  was)  sat  down  and  listened  for  a  time, 
and  at  last  turning  round  impatiently,  said, "  It's  not  worth 
listening  to;  it's  very  poor  stuff."  "You  are  right, Mr. 
Fountayne,"  said  Handel, "  it  is  very  poor  stuff:  I  thought 
so  when  I  finished  it !" 

The  year  1739  was  one  of  prodigious  activity.     The  or- 
TO.         atorio  of  Saul  was  produced  and  repeated  five 

Saul  and  Is- 
rael in  Egypt,  times.     The  overture  is  not  entirely  unknown 

by  the  public  of  to-day,  and  is  full  of  grace  and  delicacy. 
The  chorus  "a  Carillons,"  "Welcome,  welcome,  mighty 
King,"  should  be  more  frequently  heard.  The  parts  of  Jon- 
athan and  David  are  full  of  tender  pathos,  and  the  scene 
between  the  king  and  the  witch  of  Endor  is  all  the  more 
dramatic  for  not  being  coupled  with  action.  To  this  day 
no  dirge  is  complete  without  the  "  Dead  March,"  which  is 
especially  important,  from  a  musical  point  of  view,  as  be- 
ing one  of  the  few  intensely  sad  and  solemn  symphonies 
written  in  a  major  key.  In  the  same  year  Alexander's 
Feast  was  twice  played ;  an  early  oratorio,  II  Trionfo  del 
Tempo,  was  revived ;  and  last  and  most  notable  fact  of  all, 
the  Israel  in  Egypt  was  composed  in  the  incredibly  short 
space  of  twenty-seven  days.  The  Israel  in  Egypt  hardly 
survived  three  representations.  It  was  certainly  the  least 
popular  oratorio  yet  produced.  Saul  was  preferred  to  it, 
and  about  this  time  Signer  Piantanida,  the  great  fiddler, 
arriving  from  Italy,  was  preferred  to  both.  The  Israel  was 
produced  but  nine  times  in  Handel's  lifetime.  Each  time 
it  had  to  be  cooked  —  sometimes  by  cutting  out  choruses 
and  putting  in  airs,  at  others  by  leaving  out  both.  No 
book  of  extracts  from  it  was  published,  and  the  score  re- 
mained unedited  in  1759,  the  year  of  Handel's  death. 


SAUL  AND  ISRAEL  IN  EG TPT.  1 6 9 

With  the  exception  of  a  brief  and  disastrous  return  to 
Italian  opera  in  1 740,  Imeneo  and  Deidamia,  Handel  now 
definitely  renounced  the  stage  which  had  witnessed  the 
triumph  of  his  youthful  powers  and  the  failure  of  his  ma- 
ture genius.  He  was  now  fifty-five  years  old,  and  had  en- 
tered, after  many  a  long  and  weary  contest,  upon  his  last 
and  greatest  creative  period.  His  genius  culminates  in 
the  Israel;  elsewhere  he  has  produced  longer  recitatives 
and  more  pathetic  arias,  nowhere  has  he  written  finer  tenor 
songs  than  "  The  Enemy  saith,"  or  finer  duets  than  "  The 
Lord  is  a  man  of  war ;"  and  there  is  not  in  the  history  of 
music  an  example  of  choruses  piled  up  like  so  many  Ossas 
on  Pelions  in  such  majestic  strength,  and  hurled  in  open 
defiance  at  a  public  whose  ears  were  itching  for  Italian 
love-lays  and  English  ballads. 

In  these  twenty-eight  colossal  choruses  we  perceive  at 
once  a  reaction  against  and  a  triumph  over  the  tastes  of 
the  age.  The  wonder  is,  not  that  the  Israel  was  unpopu- 
lar, but  that  it  should  have  been  tolerated ;  but  Handel, 
while  be  appears  to  have  been  for  years  driven  by  the  pub- 
lic, had  been,  in  reality,  driving  them.  His  earliest  orato- 
rio, II  Trionfo  del  Tempo,  had  but  two  choruses — into  his 
operas  more  and  more  were  introduced,  with  disastrous 
consequences — but  when,  at  the  zenith  of  his  strength,  he 
produced  a  work  which  consisted  almost  entirely  of  these 
unpopular  peculiarities,  the  public  treated  him  with  re- 
spect, and  actually  sat  out  three  performances  in  one  sea- 
son ! 

But  the  choruses  themselves  were  not  without  a  popular 
fibre,  and  probably  they  were  saved  by  the  very  qualities 
which  are  now  least  esteemed.  The  notion  that  music 
should  be  imitative  (except  in  a  very  secondary  sense)  is 
rapidly  losing  ground.  The  function  of  music  is  to  kindle 
emotion,  not  to  raise  image_s.  No  doubt  images,  when 


170  HANDEL. 

raised,  have  the  power  of  kindling  emotions,  but  music  can 
do  it  without  them,  and  better  than  they  can.  When,  thent 
music  seeks  first  to  raise  an  image  in  the  mind,  that  through 
the  image  emotion  may  be  kindled,  it  is  abdicating  its 
proper  authority  in  committing  its  own  special  business  to 
an  inferior  agent.  However,  since  no  one  wishes  to  rewrite 
the  "  Hailstone  Chorus,"  we  may  admit  that  a  skillful  com» 
promise  between  images  and  emotions  may  be  made  by 
music.  But  then  it  becomes  more  than  ever  necessary  to 
ask  how  far  music  may  suggest  images  without  injury  to 
its  own  peculiar  function  as  an  emotional  agent.  And  the 
answer  seems  to  be  this:  laying  aside  the  whole  subject 
of  association  and  memory  in  music,  we  may  say  that  the 
effect  of  music  as  the  language  of  the  emotions  is  in  pn> 
portion  to  the  unimpeded  beauty  of  its  expression.  There- 
fore no  tempting  imitation  must  impede  that  expression, 
or  render  it  less  musical — the  image,  if  introduced  at  all, 
must  be  absorbed  naturally  by  the  music,  and  woven  into 
the  very  texture  of  the  work.  This,  we  may  fairly  say, 
has  been  done  in  the  fire  and  hail,  which  run  along  the 
ground,  in  the  "  Hailstone  Chorus."  It  was  possible  to  im- 
itate the  running  and  rattling  of  hail,  and  it  has  been  done, 
but  without  controlling  the  free  and  beautiful  expression, 
or  disturbing  the  essential  development  of  the  chorus. 

When  we  come  to  the  frogs  leaping,  the  image  begins  to 
get  the  upper  hand,  and  the  emotional  force  is  instantly 
diminished,  and  necessarily  so ;  for  images  derive  their  sig- 
nificance from  the  emotion  with  which  you  are  prepared 
to  clothe  them ;  and  if,  as  is  certainly  the  case,  they  ever 
create  emotion  by  themselves,  it  is  only  because  the  mind 
at  some  previous  time  has  invested  them  with  the  emotion, 
which  it  subsequently  draws  from  them.  But  images  in 
themselves  are  passionless  symbols,  and  that  mysterious 
movement  of  life  which  we  call  emotion  is  the  only  heat 


SA  UL  AXD  ISRAEL  IN  EGYPT.  171 

and  glory  of  them.  To  appeal,  then,  from  sound,  which 
touches  directly  the  very  springs  of  emotion,  to  images, 
which  only  affect  us  when  they  are  touched  by  those  very 
springs,  is  like  appealing  from  the  sun  itself  to  a  pool  of 
water  in  which  we  may  have  once  seen  it  reflected. 

Bu*t  Handel's  finest  effects  are  not  imitations,  although 
they  have  been  called  so ;  they  are  analogies,  or  musical 
counterparts.  It  is  obvious  that  a  thitig  like  darkness, 
which  is  simply  the  negation  of  light,  is  not  imitable  by 
any  sound ;  yet  the  emotion  of  darkness  that  may  be  felt 
is  very  intensely  produced  by  means  of  that  wonderful 
sound  analogue  beginning, "  He  sent  a  thick  darkness." 
We  have  another  fine  sound  analogue  in  Joshua,  where 
the  sun  standing  still  is  represented  by  a  long-drawn-out 
note.  But  we  repeat  that  analogy  is  not  imitation ;  and 
if  we  wish  to  compare  musical  analogy  with  musical  imita- 
tion, we  can  not  do  better  than  pass  from  Handel's  "  dark- 
ness" in  the  Israel,  and  "  light"  in  the  Joshua,  to  Beetho- 
ven's real  "  cuckoo"  in  the  Pastoral  Symphony,  and  Men- 
delssohn's live  donkey  in  the  Midsummer  NighCs  Dream. 

It  was  clear  that  henceforth  neither  praise  nor  blame 
could  turn  Handel  out  of  his  course.  He  was  not  popular 
at  this  time  with  the  musical  world ;  his  operas  had  been 
quenched  for  good,  and  the  first  surprise  of  his  oratorio 
music  over,  his  greatest  works  failed  to  bring  him  in  much 
money ;  his  enemies  tore  down  his  handbills,  and  his  finest 
cantatas,  such  as  U Allegro  and  II  Penseroso,  were  voted 
tedious.  But  we  find  no  more  undignified  catering  for 
popular  taste ;  no  more  writing  in  the  Italian  style ;  no 
more  ballets ;  no  more  silly  and  emasculated  operas.  The 
eagle  has  finally  left  the  small  birds  chattering  on  the 
tree-tops,  and  has  soared  once  for  all  into  the  higher  re- 
gion. 

Handel  continued  to  compose  with  the  greatest  indus- 


1 72  HANDEL. 

try,  but  he  was  getting  very  tired  of  London,  and  was  be- 
ginning to  turn  his  eyes  from  an  ungrateful  English  pub- 
lic toward  Ireland. 

Handel  was  very  fond  of  the  Irish,  and  this  truly  musical 
n.       people  had  long  been  devoted  to  him.    The  Duke 

Haudel  in   r 

Ireland,  of  Devonshire,  lord  lieutenant,  had  asked  him  over, 
and  an  influential  society  of  amateurs  in  Dublin  requested 
him  to  come  and  compose  music  for  a  festival  in  aid  of 
"  poor  and  distressed  prisoners  for  debt"  in  the  Marshalsea 
of  Dublin. 

There  was  nothing  to  keep  him  in  London,  and  the  Dub- 
lin papers  announce  that  on  the  "18th  of  November,  1741, 
Dr.  Handel  arrived  here  in  the  packet-boat  from  Holyhead ; 
a  gentleman  universally  known  by  his  excellent  composi- 
tion in  all  kinds  of  music." 

From  the  moment  of  his  arrival,  Handel's  house  in  Ab- 
bey Street,  near  Liffey  Street,  became  the  resort  of  all  the 
professors  and  amateurs  in  Dublin.  No  time  was  lost  in 
producing  selections  from  the  splendid  repertory  of  music 
which  the  German  composer  had  brought  over  with  him. 
One  after  another  his  principal  works  were  unfolded  to  an 
admiring  audience  in  the  New  Music  Hall,  Fishamble 
Street.  The  crush  was  so  great  to  hear  the  Allegro  and 
Penseroso  that  the  doors  had  to  be  closed,  and  a  handbill 
put  up  to  say  that  no  more  money  could  be  taken,  and  the 
papers  declared  there  never  had  been  such  a  scene.  Han- 
del gave  twelve  performances  at  incredibly  short  intervals, 
comprising  almost  all  his  finest  and  chiefly  his  latest  works. 
In  these  concerts  the  Acis  and  Alexander's  Feast  held  the 
most  prominent  places.  But  the  lustre  even  of  these  com- 
positions was  about  to  pale  before  the  Messiah,  as  the  mere 
vestibule  is  forgotten  when  we  stand  at  last  by  the  sacred 
shrine  of  the  inner  temple. 


THE  MESSIAH.  173 

At  midday  of  the  13th  of  April,  1742,  the  great  hall  in. 
72  Fishamble  Street  was  densely  crowded  with  an 
The  Meseiah.  enthusiastic  audience.  Mr.  Handel's  new  orato* 
rio,  the  Messiah,  composed  in  England  especially  for  Dub- 
lin, was  to  be  performed  for  the  first  time.  Mrs.  Gibber, 
Mrs.  Avolio,  and  Mr.  Dubourg  were  the  chief  singers,  and, 
following  the  example  of  Handel,  they  gave  their  services 
gratuitously ;  for,  by  a  remarkable  and  perhaps  not  wholly 
undesigned  coincidence,  the  first  performance  of  the  Mes- 
siah literally  proclaimed  deliverance  to  the  captives,  for  it 
was,  as  we  have  said,  for  the  benefit  and  enlargement  of 
poor  distressed  prisoners  for  debt  in  the  several  prisons  in 
the  city  of  Dublin. 

The  newspapers  and  the  critics,  the  poets  and  the  tat- 
tlers, exhausted  every  trope  and  figure  in  their  praise  of 
the  new  oratorio.  A  reverend  gentleman  in  the  audience 
is  recorded  to  have  so  far  forgotten  himself  or  his  Bible  as 
to  exclaim  at  the  close  of  one  of  Mrs.  Gibber's  airs, "  Wom- 
an, for  this  be  all  thy  sins  forgiven  thee ;"  while  another  en- 
thusiast observed,  in  terms  even  more  poetical  and  scarce- 
ly less  secular,  that 

"To  harmony  like  his  celestial  power  was  given, 
To  exalt  the  soul  from  earth  and  make  of  hell  a  heaven. " 

The  penny-a-liners  wrote  that  "  words  were  wanting  to 
express  the  exquisite  delight  that  it  afforded,"  etc.,  etc. ; 
and,  lastly,  to  their  honor  be  it  recorded,  the  ladies  of  the 
period  consented  to  leave  their  hoops  at  home  in  order  that 
an  additional  one  hundred  listeners  might  be  got  into  the 
room.  The  proceeds  amounted  to  about  £400,  and  the 
event  may  truly  be  regarded  as  the  greatest  in  Handel's 
life.  Years  of  misconception,  partial  neglect,  and  bitter 
rivalry  were  forgotten  in  that  hour  of  triumph.  A  few 
months  before,  the  equally  great  oratorio  of  Israel  had 
been  but  coldly  received  in  England ;  it  had  been  reserved 


!74  HANDEL. 

for  the  Irish  people  without  hesitation  to  set  their  seal  of 
enthusiastic  approval  upon  an  oratorio  which,  to  this  day, 
is  considered  by  the  majority  of  the  English  people  the 
greatest  oratorio  that  was  ever  written. 

Works  of  the  highest  genius  should  not  be  compared. 
The  Messiah  has  surely  earned  for  itself  the  right  of  being 
judged  by  itself,  as  a  great  whole,  without  reference  to 
any  other  great  whole.  So  has  the  Israel,  and  so,  we  may 
add,  has  the  Elijah. 

When  generations  have  been  melted  into  tears,  or  raised 
to  religious  fervor — when  courses  of  sermons  have  been 
preached,  volumes  of  criticism  been  written  about,  and 
thousands  of  afflicted  and  poor  people  supported  by  the 
oratorio  of  the  Messiah,  it  becomes  exceedingly  difficult  to 
say  any  thing  new.  Yet  no  notice  of  Handel,  however 
sketchy,  should  be  written  without  some  special  tribute  of 
reverence  to  this  sublime  treatment  of  a  sublime  subject. 
Bach,  Graun,  Beethoven,  Spohr,  Rossini,  and,  it  may  be 
added,  Mendelssohn,  and,  later  still,  Mr.  Henry  Leslie,  have 
all  composed  on  the  same  theme ;  but  no  one  in  complete- 
ness, in  range  of  effect,  in  elevation  and  variety  of  concep- 
tion, has  ever  approached  Handel's  music  upon  this  partic- 
ular subject. 

The  orchestral  prelude,  fairly  overstepping  the  manner- 
isms of  that  period,  opens  with  a  series  of  chords  which,  in 
their  abrupt  and  deliberate  shocks  of  startling  harmony, 
immediately  arrest  the  attention,  and  inspire  the  hearer 
with  a  certain  majestic  anticipation.  This  strange  grave 
soon  breaks  into  the  short  fugue,  which,  in  its  simple  and 
clear  severity,  prepares  the  mind  with  an  almost  ascetic 
tone  for  the  sustained  act  of  devotional  contemplation 
about  to  follow. 

Upon  this  temper  of  devout  expectation  the  words  "Com- 
fort ye  my  people"  fall  like  a  refreshing  dayspring  from  on 


THE  MESSIAH.  1 75 

high.  The  soul  seeking  for  God  has  but  just  withdrawn 
itself  from  an  evil  and  a  suffering  world  to  wait  in  faith, 
when  at  the  hour  of  that  world's  greatest  need — in  the 
moment  of  a  resignation  almost  stoical — a  glimpse  of  the 
blue  heaven  is  seen,  and  the  voice  of  prophecy  rolls  forth, 
"  Thus  sAith  the  Lord !"  Immediately  the  heat  and  stir 
of  human  interest  is  once  more  kindled,  and  the  Deliverer 
seems  very  near.  With  a  merry  noise  of  joyful  encour- 
agement, each  man  finds  some  work  to  do — these  in  level- 
ing the  mountains,  those  in  bridging  the  vales  with  via- 
ducts, for  the  King  of  Glory  to  pass  over.  "We  hear  a  vast 
multitude,  not  of  slaves,  but  of  freemen,  singing  at  their 
work,  "Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,"  and  suddenly  break- 
ing from  monologue  into  chorus,  their  lips  send  forth  the 
one  thought  that  possesses  them, "  The  glory  of  the  Lord 
— the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed." 

But  the  exceeding  light  will  surely  blind  them ;  they  are 
so  weak  with  sin,  and  He  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold 
iniquity.  "Who  may  abide  the  day  of  His  coming?" — a 
terror  seems  to  seize  them.  The  voice  scales  up  to  a  high 
pitch,  and  dwells  with  a  kind  of  awful  suspense  and  fasci- 
nation on  the  word  "  appeareth."  The  first  burst  of  joyful 
activity  over,  their  sinful  hearts  quail  before  the  thought 
of  the  mighty  and  spotless  King.  But  do  they  indeed  de- 
sire Him  ?  Would  they  rather  have  his  severity  than  their 
own  sin  ?  Then  He  himself  will  fit  them  for  his  presence. 
"  He  shall  purify  them,"  and  help  them  to  "  offer  unto  Him 
an  offering  of  righteousness." 

Therefore,  with  hearts  docile  and  teachable,  waiting  for 
the  Messiah,  they  eagerly  listen  to  the  words  of  the  Seer, 
"  Behold,  a  virgin  shall  conceive."  Is  it  indeed  so  ?  What 
a  different  message  from  the  one  they  expected,  and  yet 
how  reassuring  !  All  their  fears  are  at  once  calmed.  He 
was  to  be  humble  as  well  as  mighty.  He  was  to  be  one 


176  HANDEL. 

of  them,  and  yet  in  some  mysterious  way  exalted  above 
them  all.  The  image  of  a  King  coming  with  pomp  and 
majesty  is  now  withdrawn,  and  in  its  place  we  have  sim- 
ply a  Virgin  and  a  Child. 

But  at  that  moment,  while  a  chorus  of  those  who  accept 
this  strange  and  unexpected  revelation  with  the  utmost 
joy  and  confidence,  believing  that,  in  spite  of  appearances, 
"  the  government  shall  be  upon  his  shoulders,"  the  first 
ominous  forebodings  of  the  impending  catastrophe  may  be 
noticed  in  the  recitative  and  aria,  dwelling  on  the  gross 
darkness  of  the  people  at  large,  and  forcibly  reminding  us 
of "  the  light  which  shone  in  the  darkness,  and  the  dark- 
ness which  comprehended  it  not." 

Then  comes  one  of  those  pauses  so  common  in  the  works 
of  the  great  dramatists,  where  the  mind  has  been  led  up  to 
the  threshold  of  certain  startling  events,  and  is  called  upon 
to  recreate  itself  for  a  moment  before  entering  upon  a  train 
of  the  most  exciting  interest  and  rapid  action. 

We  are  upon  the  hill-sides  around  Bethlehem ;  the  de- 
licious pastoral  symphony  makes  us  aware  of  a  land  of 
flocks  and  herds.  It  is  toward  evening;  the  flocks  of 
sheep  are  being  gathered  by  the  shepherds,  and  are  wind- 
ing slowly  toward  the  wells  before  settling  down  on  the 
mountain  slopes  for  the  night.  The  melody  breathes  peace 
as  the  shadows  lengthen  with  the  setting  sun ;  at  length 
we  seem  to  hear  the  faint  tinkle  of  the  last  bells  die  away 
in  the  distance,  and  then  all  is  still.  The  flocks  are  rest- 
ing, the  shepherds  are  watching  beside  them  in  the  dark- 
ness, when,  lo !  the  angel  of  the  Lord  comes  upon  them, 
and  in  an  instant  the  bright  light  gleams  out  upon  the 
green  and  glittering  sward ;  the  gloom  is  suddenly  broken 
up  with  tints  of  heavenly  color,  and  the  night  is  filled  with 
music.  The  accompaniment  to  the  recitative  "  And  lo !" 
gives  the  sensation  of  the  mustering  from  afar  of  the  an- 


THE  MESSIAH.  177 

gels ;  and  by  the  time  we  come  to  the  angelic  chorus, "  Glo- 
ry to  God,"  which  is  exquisitely  written,  chiefly  in  treble, 
and  is  ringing  with  pure  melody,  the  whole  air  seems  full 
of  visions — myriads  of  flame-like  faces,  sublime  and  tender, 
such  as  Fra  Angelico  loved  to  paint,  are  around  us,  the 
distance  is  thronged  with  them,  the  air  vibrates  with  the 
pulsation  of  their  innumerable  wings  as  they  chant  to  each 
other,  with  the  voices  of  another  world,  the  hymn  of  glory ; 
and  then,  just  as  the  shepherds  are  beginning  to  realize 
their  own  ecstasy,  the  light  fades,  the  sound  seems  to  as- 
cend and  be  lost  among  the  stars,  and  all  is  again  dark  on 
the  hill-sides  of  Bethlehem.  But  the  light  was  evermore 
in  the  shepherds'  eyes,  and  the  sound  of  the  angels'  voices 
in  their  ears,  and, with  images  culled  from  their  own  gentle 
calling,  they  returned  bringing  a  message  of  joy  to  Zion, 
and  proclaiming  in  snatches  of  that  very  melody  they  had 
heard  by  night  the  advent  of  One  "  who  should  feed  his 
flock  like  a  shepherd,  and  carry  the  lambs  in  his  bosom." 

The  second  part,  which  is  occupied  with  the  sufferings 
and  exaltation  of  Christ,  the  spread  and  final  triumph  of 
the  Gospel,  opens  with  what  is  probably  the  finest  piece 
of  choral  declamation  in  existence.  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of 
God  !"  now  sounds  through  the  world,  and  each  time,  as 
the  august  cry  sinks,  it  is  taken  up  again  and  again,  until 
the  whole  land  is  ringing  with  the  announcement. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how,  in  obedience  to  the  prev- 
alent theology  of  the  day,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  sup- 
pressed, and  only  his  more  conspicuous  sufferings  and 
death  are  dwelt  upon. 

We  are  now  brought  close  to  a  Messiah  very  different 
from  the  popular  conception  at  the  beginning  of  the  first 
part ;  and,  instead  of  a  triumphant  King,  one  appears  who, 
"  without  form  or  comeliness,"  treads  the  path  of  suffering, 
and  is  made  acquainted  with  grief.  A  heavy  shame  and 
12 


178  HANDEL. 

sorrow  seems  to  pervade  the  next  few  pieces,  as  of  some 
beloved  disciple  who  stands  aside  comprehending  in  part 
the  nature  of  the  tragic  spectacle  before  him,  and  a  prey 
to  all  its  desolating  influences.  The  floodgates  of  feeling 
are  at  length  loosed,  and  after  the  air,  "  He  was  despised 
and  rejected  of  men,"  written  singularly  enough  in  the 
major  key,  three  choruses  are  poured  forth  in  succession. 
The  first  two,  "  Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs,"  and 
"With  his  stripes  we  are  healed,"  bringing  before  us  the 
willing  victim  and  the  propitiation  for  sin,  and  the  third, 
"  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray,"  representing  with 
marvelous  fidelity  the  constant  and  hopeless  wanderings 
of  the  sheep.  It  was  this  hopeless  disorder  that  had  to  be 
atoned  for,  these  hopeless  wanderers  that  had  to  be  re- 
claimed. The  Shepherd  of  Israel  could  alone  seek  and  save 
that  which  was  lost.  He  would  not  shrink  from  the  nec- 
essary suffering ;  He  would  endure  scorn,  and  solitude,  and 
agony ;  He  was  the  Good  Shepherd  who  laid  down  his  life 
for  the  sheep.  Then  we  are  shown  the  outside  world 
laughing  Him  to  scorn,  and  the  vulgar  rabble  shooting  out 
their  tongues  and  mocking  Him  in  harsh  and  abrupt  staves 
of  ribald  irony — "  He  trusted  in  God  that  He  would  deliv- 
er Him !"  till  at  last  the  disciple  who  stands  by  can  bear 
the  sight  no  longer,  and,  as  he  hears  the  Savior  cry  out, 
"  Eloi,Eloi,lama  sabachthani !"  he  himself  turns  away,  over- 
come with  misery,  exclaiming,  "  Thy  rebuke  hath  broken 
his  heart !" 

The  first  feeling  at  the  sight  of  the  dead  Christ  upon 
the  cross  is  one  of  simple  and  blank  despair.  He  who 
should  have  redeemed  Israel — upon  whose  shoulders  the 
government  was  to  rest — the  Mighty  Counselor,  the  Prince 
of  Peace — He  was  no  victorious  monarch — only  a  crucified 
man  !  "  He  was  cut  off  out  of  the  land  of  the  living." 
But  this  train  of  thought  is  soon  arrested,  and  we  are  car- 


THE  MESSIAH.  179 

ried  rapidly  forward  through  death  and  the  grave,  until, 
ascending  from  those  depths  with  the  now  glorified  Savior, 
we  rise  higher  and  higher  toward  the  blinding  splendors 
of  the  heavenly  courts.  A  shout  of  triumph  bursts  forth 
as  the  everlasting  gates  roll  asunder,  and  throngs  of  angels 
with  the  bright  seraphim  stream  forth  to  meet  the  King. 
The  sky  itself  seems  to  throb  with  the  thrilling  cry, "  He 
is  the  King  of  Glory !"  and  just  as  we  begin  to  feel  that  we 
have  been  whirled  along  with  the  prodigious  power  of  the 
sound  until  we  have  almost  forgotten  our  own  powers  of 
endurance,  and  are  made  sensible  that  we  can  no  longer 
bear  the  strain  of  excitement,  the  abrupt  dead  pause  falls, 
and  then,  with  a  last,  long,  shattering  cry  "  of  glory,"  the 
mighty  p«an  swoons  away  into  the  echoless  silence. 

After  such  a  climax  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  the 
next  three  pieces  deficient  in  interest ;  this  may  even  be 
intentional.  The  great  artist  knows  when  the  eye  requires 
rest,  and  lays  on  his  middle  tints  until  our  emotion  has 
been  subdued,  and  we  are  ready  to  contemplate  with  calm- 
ness the  progress  of  the  Gospel  in  the  world. 

Something  like  a  second  pastoral  now  follows — the  Lord 
Christ  speaks  from  heaven,  and  sends  forth  shepherds  to 
feed  his  lambs — "  How  beautiful  are  their  feet !"  and  then 
the  mind  is  absorbed  by  the  stir  and  enterprise  of  mission- 
ary labor  until  the  chorus, "  Their  sound  is  gone  out  into 
all  lands,"  is  felt  to  be  as  powerfully  descriptive  as  the  go- 
ing astray  of  the  sheep  themselves.  In  another  moment 
the  shepherds  have  become  warrior-pilgrims,  the  nations 
rage  furiously  together,  but  their  bows  are  broken  asunder 
— the  rod  of  iron  smites  them,  and  God  himself  declares  for 
the  soldiers  of  the  Cross.  The  battle-scene  in  its  turn  van- 
ishes, and  the  final  triumph  of  good  over  evil  is  anticipated 
by  a  daring  and  indomitable  effort  of  faith  ;  for  a  moment 
all  heaven  is  opened ;  we  are  caught  up  in  the  clouds,  and 


180  HANDEL. 

hear  from  the  vast  multitude  which  no  man  can  numbei 
the  hallelujahs  of  those  that  chime  "after  the  chiming  of 
the  eternal  spheres." 

The  "Hallelujah  Chorus"  stands  alone.  It  is  not  easy 
to  speak  of  it.  It  appears  to  have  the  same  overpowering 
effect  upon  learned  and  unlearned;  it  is  felt  and  under- 
stood by  all.  The  thought  is  absolutely  simple,  so  is  the 
expression  ;  two  or  three  massive  phrases  growing  out  of 
each  other,  or,  rather,  rising  one  after  another,  in  reitera- 
ted bursts  of  glory,  a  piece  of  divine  melody  in  the  middle, 
succeeded  by  the  last  clause  of  the  triumphal  shout,  "And 
He  shall  reign  forever  and  ever,"  which  is  taken  up  raptur- 
ously by  the  flaming  choirs  of  the  immortals,  and  hurled 
from  side  to  side,  until  at  last  the  energies  of  heaven  itself 
seem  spent,  and  the  mighty  strain  itself  dies  away  before 
"  the  Great  White  Throne,  and  Him  that  sitteth  thereon." 

Such  are  the  leading  ideas  and  sensations  of  this  chorus. 
But  perhaps  Handel's  own  words  are  the  only  ones  fit  to 
describe  this  shout  of  inspired  praise — "  I  did  think  I  did 
see  all  heaven  before  me,  and  the  great  God  himself!" 

That  two  such  choruses  as  "  Lift  up  your  heads"  and  the 
"Hallelujah"  should  be  placed  not  far  from  each  other  in 
one  and  the  same  part  without  prejudice  to  either,  is  in  it- 
self a  marvel ;  but  the  greater  marvel  is,  that  after  the 
"Hallelujah"  Handel  should  be  able  to  recover  himself 
and  carry  his  audience  through  a  third  part.  Mendels- 
sohn has  done  something  similar  in  the  Elijah,  after  the 
great  choruses  "  Thanks  be  to  God"  and  "  Be  not  afraid," 
and  the  scene  of  the  fiery  chariot,  with  which  an  inferior 
man  would  certainly  have  culminated.  He  has  shown 
that  he  could  refresh  and  recreate  the  heart  with  less  tre- 
mendous but  not  less  elevating  emotions  until  his  hearers 
are  fairly  restored  to  their  self-possession,  and  finally  left 
in  a  calm  and  almost  severely  meditative  frame  of  mind 
by  the  last  chorus. 


THE  MESSIAH.  181 

The  third  part  of  the  Messiah  is  purely  theological,  yet 
the  interest  does  not  flag.  When  the  history  of  the  first 
two  parts  has  been  told,  there  is  left  to  the  world  a  body 
of  Christian  truth  than  which  nothing  can  be  more  consol- 
atory and  sublime.  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth" 
belongs  to  a  type  of  melody  that  is  never  likely  to  grow 
old  nor  pass  away.  The  two  doctrinal  quartets, "  Since  by 
man  came  death,"  and  "As  in  Adam  all  die,"  have  never 
been  surpassed ;  while  in  sweetness  and  solemn  force  "  The 
trumpet  shall  sound"  will  probably  retain  its  popularity  as 
long  as  there  is  a  silver-toned  trumpet  in  existence. 

The  oratorio  closes  with  two  choruses,  of  which  the  first, 
"  Worthy  is  the  Lamb,"  is  by  far  the  most  florid.  The 
last  is  the  measured  and  severe  "Amen"  chorus. 

It  is  a  fitting  and  dignified  close  to  so  exciting,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  majestic  a  work.  All  emotion  has  now 
been  spent,  and  the  mind,  like  the  still  heaving  waves  of 
the  sea  after  a  storm,  is  left  to  rock  itself  slowly  into  deep 
and  perfect  peace.  Thus  the  oratorio  opens  with  the  hope 
of  "comfort,"  and  ends  with  the  full  calm  joy  of  attain- 
ment. One  feeling  now  fills  the  Christian  disciple  through 
and  through,  and  one  word  only  is  found  sufficient  to  ex- 
press it — it  is  the  glorious  "  Amen"  of  the  final  chorus. 

On  his  return  from  Ireland  in  1 742,  Handel  immediately 
73.  prepared  a   new   oratorio — Samson — for  the 

rcSnd  orabe  following  Lent  season  ;  and  this,  together  with 
the  Messiah,  then  heard  for  the  first  time  in 
London,  was  intended  to  form  the  staple  of  twelve  per- 
formances. Whether  many  people  went  to  hear  them  or 
not  is  doubtful ;  the  papers  have  not  a  word  of  comment 
on  that  season.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  the  fashionable 
world  in  London  had  made  up  its  mind  not  to  care  for  Mr. 
Handel.  One  Lady  Brown,  a  lady  of  fashion,  gave  large 


182  HANDEL. 

tea-parties  whenever  his  music  was  advertised ;  there  were 
regular  sets  made  up  at  Lady  Godolphin's  to  play  cards  on 
those  nights ;  one  Mr.  Russell,  a  comic  man,  was  hired  to 
sing  at  the  great  houses ;  a  few  went  to  hear  a  new  Italian 
opera,  the  Caduta  di  6figanti,\>y  a  young  man  just  arrived 
from  abroad  named  Gluck ;  and  Horace  Walpole  had  the 
impudence  to  say  of  Handel  (who  had  excellent  singers), 
that "  he  had  hired  all  the  goddesses  from  farces,  and  sing- 
ers of  roast-beef,*  from  between  the  acts  of  both  theatres, 
with  a  man  with  one  note  in  his  voice,  and  a  girl  with  nev- 
er a  one,  and  so  they  sang,  and  made  brave  Hallelujahs !" 
In  1745,  poor  Handel,  deserted  by  the  paying  world, 
struggled  through  fifteen  performances  of  his  finest  orato- 
rios, but  the  effort  cost  him  dear.  He  was  unable  to  dis- 
charge his  debts,  and  for  the  second  time  in  his  life  was 
forced  to  suspend  payment  as  a  complete  bankrupt.  Luck- 
ily his  health  did  not  give  way,  and  with  indomitable  en- 
ergy he  sat  down  to  compose  the  first  two  acts  of  the  Oc- 
casional Oratorio,  the  third  act  of  which,  though  contain- 
ing many  new  pieces,  is  of  the  nature  of  pasticcio.  Hence- 
forth he  determined  to  enter  into  no  engagement  with  sub- 
scribers for  so  many  performances  per  season,  but  to  give 
concerts  when  he  chos?,  and  to  throw  himself  rather  upon 
the  general  public,  who,  as  it  had  no  share  in  the  luxuries 
and  follies  of  the  nobles,  felt  little  enough  sympathy  with 
their  musical  tastes  and  prejudices.  Although  constantly 
persecuted  by  a  frivolous  and  effeminate  clique,  Handel 
never  appealed  in  vain  to  the  people  at  large.  In  a  short 
time  he  had  discharged  his  unfulfilled  obligations  to  sub- 
scribers by  issuing  free  tickets  for  some  Lent  performances, 
and  had  also  laid  by  sufficient  to  pay  off  most  of  his  debts. 
This  was  in  1746. 

*  In  allusion  to  the  "  Roast  Beef  of  Old  England,"  a  popular  song  of 
the  period. 


JUDAS  MA  CCAB^EUS.  183 

In  the  following  year,  the  third  of  his  great  masterpieces, 
74.        the  Judas  Maccabceus.  appeared.     It  was  com- 

Judas  Mac-  . 

cabseus.  posed  in  thirty  days,  between  the  9th  of  July  and 
the  llth  of  August,  and  was  produced  at  Covent  Garden 
on  the  1st  of 'April,  1747. 

Justice  is  usually  discovered  to  be  on  the  winning  side, 
and  after  the  victory  of  Culloden,  Prince  William,  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  not  too  popular  in  some  quarters,  had  to 
be  greeted  as  the  Judas  Maccabseus  of  the  age.  The  ap- 
plication was  not  obvious,  but  it  served  Handel's  turn. 
The  first  part  opens  with  the  celebrated  chorus, "  Mourn 
ye  afflicted ;"  but  grief  for  the  departed  hero  who  had 
roused  the  Jews  to  resist  the  oppression  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  soon  vanished  before  the  fair  promise  of  his  no- 
ble son  Judas.  The  "pious  orgies"  for  the  father  over, 
"  Arm,  arm,  ye  brave !"  is  the  war-cry  of  the  son,  and  the 
rest  of  the  part  is  occupied  with  appropriate  meditations 
on,  and  preparations  for,  the  war,  until  at  length  they  go 
to  battle  with  the  chorus, "  Hear  us,  O  Lord."  The  second 
part  celebrates  the  victories  of  Judas  Maccabseus,  and  con- 
tains one  of  the  best  known  of  Handel's  songs, "  Sound  an 
alarm !"  It  concludes  with  one  of  the  freest  and  most 
original  of  his  choruses, "  We  never  will  bow  down."  The 
last  part  celebrates  the  return  of  Judas  after  re-establish- 
ing the  liberties  of  his  country,  and  winds  up  with  the  na- 
tional thanksgiving.  "  O  lovely  Peace"  is  one  of  the  fresh- 
est soprano  duets  ever  written,  and  "  See  the  conquering 
Hero  comes,"  which  originally  belonged  to  Joshua,  is  per- 
haps the  most  widely  popular  of  all  Handel's  compositions. 

The  Messiah  excepted,  no  oratorio  is  more  often  perform- 
ed in  England  than  Judas  Maccabceus.  In  many  respects 
it  is  not  so  difficult  to  get  through  passably,  and  is  conse- 
quently a  great  favorite  with  amateur  choirs;  although 
not  too  long,  it  readily  admits  of  being  shortened,  and  in 


184  HANDEL. 

provincial  towns  is  seldom  heard  in  its  entirety.  It  con- 
tains much  repetition  of  sentiment,  and  yet  little  that  we 
can  afford  to  lose :  it  is  one  of  the  very  finest  works  of  his 
most  mature  period.  The  Morning  Herald  of  the  19th  of 
February,  1852,  indulged  in  the  following  sapient  criti- 
cisms, which  we  can  not  do  better  than  quote :  "  The  airs 
of  Judas  Maccabceus,  like  those  of  many  other  works  of 
Handel,  are  occasionally  feeble  and  insipid ;  but  two  or 
three  of  them  are  exactly  the  reverse,  and  in  the  hands  of 
singers  of  ability  become  both  important  and  interesting." 
0  patria  !  O  mores  ! 

In  1747  appeared  Joshua.    The  graceful  air, "  Hark,  'tis 
75  the  linnet,"  still  never  fails  to  please.     Haydn 

h,  observed  of  the  chorus,  "The  nations  tremble," 
that  only  one  inspired  author  ever  did,  or  ever 
would,  pen  so  sublime  a  composition.  The  amount  of  reci- 
tative makes  the  oratorio  heavy  as  a  whole.  In  1748, 
Handel,  being  then  in  his  sixty-fourth  year,  wrote  the  ora- 
torio of  Solomon;  between  the  5th  of  May  and  the  19th 
of  June  the  oratorio  of  Susannah;  between  the  llth  of 
July  and  the  24th  of  August,  toward  the  close  of  the  same 
year,  he  prepared  the  Firework  Music,  which  was  played 
at  night  before  the  king's  palace  in  the  Green  Park.  Let 
us  hope  that  his  love  of  noise  was  for  once  fully  gratified. 
The  music  ended  with  the  explosion  of  a  hundred  and  one 
brass  cannons,  seventy-one  six  pounders,  twenty  twelve- 
pounders,  and  ten  twenty-four  pounders.  There  was  no 
lack  of  hunting  -  horns,  hautboys,  bassoons,  kettle  -  drums 
and  side-drums,  besides  bass-viols  innumerable.  Every 
one  seems  to  have  been  delighted ;  and  when  the  magnifi- 
cent Doric  temple,  under  the  superintendence  of  that  great 
pyrotechnist,  the  Chevalier  Servardoni,  went  off  with  a 
terrific  bang,  it  was  thought  success  could  go  no  farther, 


JOSHUA,  SOLOMON,  SUSANNAH,  THEODORA.  185 

atod  the  king's  library  was  very  nearly  burnt  down.  When, 
in  1749,  the  Firework  Music  was  repeated  at  the  Vauxhall 
Gardens  by  a  band  of  a  hundred  musicians,  twelve  thou- 
sand persons  are  said  to  have  attended.  There  was  such 
a  stoppage  on  London  Bridge  that  no  carriage  could  pass 
for  three  hours,  and  the  receipts  were  set  down  at  the  fab- 
ulous sum  of  £5700. 

In  1749  Handel  produced  one  of  his  least  popular  ora- 
torios, Theodora.  It  was  a  great  favorite  with  him,  and 
he  used  to  say  that  the  chorus, "  He  saw  the  lovely  Youth," 
was  finer  than  any  thing  in  the  Messiah.  The  public  were 
not  of  this  opinion,  and  he  was  glad  to  give  away  tickets 
to  any  professors  who  applied  for  them.  When  the  Mes- 
siah was  again  produced,  two  of  these  gentlemen  who  had 
neglected  Theodora  applied  for  admission.  "  Oh !  your 
sarvant,  meine  Herren !"  exclaimed  the  indignant  composer. 
"  You  are  tamnable  dainty !  You  would  not  go  to  Teo- 
dora — dere  was  room  enough  to  dance  dere  when  dat  was 
perform."  When  Handel  heard  that  an  enthusiast  had 
offered  to  make  himself  responsible  for  all  the  boxes  the 
next  time  the  despised  oratorio  should  be  given — "  He  is 
a  fool,"  said  he ;  "  the  Jews  will  not  come  to  it  as  to  Judas 
Maccabceus^  because  it  is  a  Christian  story ;  and  the  ladies 
will  not  come,  because  it  is  a  virtuous  one." 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  virtue  itself,  under  so  at- 
tractive a  form,  could  fail  to  charm.  "  Angels  ever  bright 
and  fair"  is  probably  the  highest  flight  of  melody  that  even 
Handel  ever  reached. 

But  the  long  struggle  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  the 
battle  was  nearly  won,  as  the  great  ship  floated  out  of  the 
storm  into  the  calm  sunset  waters.  Handel  had  turned 
from  the  nobles  to  the  people,  and  the  people  had  welcomed 
him  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  An 
aristocratic  reaction  soon  began  to  take  place :  it  was  found 


186  HANDEL. 

necessary  to  produce  pasticcio  operas  by  the  lately-neglect- 
ed composer,  and  to  republish  numbers  of  airs  as  harpsi- 
chord pieces  which  in  their  original  connection  had  found 
small  favor.  Publishers  vied  with  each  other  in  producing 
works  with  Mr.  Handel's  name,  and  there  is  reason  to  fear 
that  unscrupulous  persons  manufactured  music  by  Handel 
as  freely  as  Italian  artists  are  in  the  habit  of  attaching  the 
name  of  Domenichino  to  their  dull  and  smoky  daubs.  By 
the  time  Handel  had  reached  his  sixty-seventh  year  the 
merits  of  rival  factions  were  pretty  generally  understood, 
and  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in  compara< 
tive  tranquillity. 

No  voice  was  now  raised  to  proclaim  the  superior  charms 
,  w.       of  Bononcini  —  no  rival  composer  sent  for  to  ruin 

Handel  at 


the  great  sacred  writer  with  Italian  rubbish  —  no 
foreign  fiddler  announced  to  supersede  Mr.  Handel's  enter- 
tainments on  the  organ  —  nor  any  comic  man  to  grin  the 
Israel  or  the  Judas  Maccabceus  out  of  court.  The  closing 
years  of  the  great  master's  life  witnessed  a  general  draw- 
ing together  of  adverse  parties  and  reconcilement  of  pri- 
vate quarrels.  Handel  at  last  found  his  way  to  an  eleva- 
tion from  which  no  one  thought  of  dislodging  him. 

It  is  pleasant,  before  the  last  sad  short  act  of  his  life,  to 
bring  him  before  us  as  he  appeared  at  this  time  to  those 
who  knew  him  best,  and  loved  him  most.  His  life  of  al- 
ternate contemplation,  industry,  and  excitement,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  is  unstained  by  any  suspicion  of  dishonesty 
or  licentiousness.  A  few  indistinct  rumors  of  unsuccessful 
love  affairs  in  very  early  life  (unsuccessful  on  the  part  of 
the  ladies)  reach  us;  and  we  hear  no  more  of  women,  nor 
of  any  need  of  their  love  experienced  by  Handel.  He  lived 
for  the  most  part  very  quietly  in  the  house  now  numbered 
57  Brook  Street,  Hanover  Square,  and  let  the  charmers  of 


HANDEL  A  T  PEA  CE.  j  g  7 

this  world  go  their  way.  Of  no  man  was  it  ever  truer  than 
of  Handel,  that  he  was  wedded  to  his  art.  His  recreations 
were  few  and  simple.  Occasionally  he  would  stroll  into 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  and  amuse  himself  with  ineffectual  at- 
tempts to  play  the  people  out ;  then  taking  sculls,  or,  when 
in  better  circumstances,  indulging  himself  in  oars,  he  would 
be  rowed  toward  the  village  of  Charing,  along  the  banks 
of  the  Thames,  whose  waters  were  then  somewhat  more 
transparent  than  they  are  now.  Not  far  from  his  favorite 
organ  at  St.  Paul's  there  was  a  favorite  tavern  called  the 
"  Queen's  Head."  Thither  he  often  resorted  at  nightfall, 
and  smoked  his  pipe  and  drank  his  beer  with  three  others 
— Goupy,  the  painter ;  Hunter,  the  scarlet  dyer ;  and  John 
Christopher  Smith,  his  secretary.  There  was  an  old  harp- 
sichord in  the  tavern,  and  he  would  often  sit  thrumming 
away  to  himself  and  a  few  musical  connoisseurs,  who  were 
content  to  drop  in  and  spend  their  time  over  papers,  por- 
ter, silence,  and  applause.  These  were  the  times  of  Han- 
del's social  exhilaration ;  and  although  we  have  no  reason 
to  believe  that  he  indulged  in  excesses,  we  have  abundant 
evidence  that  he  despised  not  conviviality.  Surrounded 
by  a  circle  of  familiars,  his  conversation  flowed  freely,  and 
sparkled  with  satire  and  fun  of  all  kinds.  He  spoke  En- 
glish, like  some  Italians,  with  great  fluency  and  infinite  sat- 
isfaction to  himself,  but  with  a  strong  accent,  and  the  con- 
struction of  his  sentences  was  sometimes  German,  some- 
times Italian.  He  was  often  passionate,  but  never  ill-na- 
tured ;  no  man  ever  had  more  rivals,  or  was  less  jealous  of 
them.  Although  he  had  numerous  acquaintances,  he  had 
few  friends ;  and  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  stead- 
ily declined  the  invitations  of  the  nobles,  whose  patronage 
might  twice  have  saved  him  from  ruin,  but  whose  flattery 
he  could  now  afford  to  dispense  with.  His  friend  Goupy, 
whose  caricatures,  although  often  leveled  against  himself, 


188  HANDEL. 

never  seemed  to  have  offended  him,  would  frequently  ao. 
company  him  to  picture-galleries,  in  which  he  took  the  most 
vivid  interest,  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that  his  operas 
owe  as  much  to  the  classical  inspiration  of  Poussin  and 
Duval,  or  the  Pastorals  of  Watteau,  as  his  sacred  music 
undoubtedly  does  to  the  great  sacred  painters  of  Italy.  In 
his  latter  years  he  was  a  regular  attendant  at  St.  George's, 
Hanover  Square,  and  it  was  noticed  by  one,  who  records 
the  fact  with  affectionate  emotion,  that  on  such  occasions 
he  appeared  to  be  deeply  absorbed  by  his  devotions. 

Let  us  look  once  more  at  this  noble  and  portly  figure 
77.          sauntering  along  with  the  peculiar  rocking  mo- 

A  Visit  to  Mas- 
ter Hardcastie.  tion  common  to  those  whose  legs  are  a  little 

bowed;  let  us  note  the  somewhat  heavy  but  expressive 
face  gathering  freshness  from  the  morning  air,  moved  at 
times  with  a  frown  like  a  thunder-cloud,  or  with  a  smile 
like  the  sun  that  bursts  from  behind  it.  The  general  im- 
pression is  the  right  one.  There  was  a  man  of  inflexible 
integrity,  of  solid  genius  and  sterling  benevolence ;  a  man 
fitted  to  cope  with  the  puerilities  of  fashion,  singularly 
generous  to  foes,  singularly  faithful  to  friends.  So,  uncon- 
scious of  the  approaching  shadow  that  was  to  dim  the 
brightness  of  his  last  days,  with  a  light  heart  which  comes 
of  a  conscience  void  of  offense  toward  God  or  man,  we  may 
picture  to  ourselves  good  Father  Handel  as  he  rocks  along 
this  morning  toward  Paper  Buildings  to  see  his  friend 
Master  Hardcastie,  and  crave  his  hospitality  for  breakfast. 
It  happened  to  be  the  very  day  on  which  a  competition 
was  to  take  place  for  the  post  of  organist  to  the  Temple 
Church,  and  Zachary  Hardcastie  had  bidden  his  old  friends, 
Colley  Gibber,  Dr.  Pepusch,  and  Dr.  Arne,  be  with  him  to  a 
dish  of  coffee  and  a  roll  at  nine  o'clock,  in  order  that  they 
might  all  go  together  to  hear  the  contest. 


A  VISIT  TO  MASTER  HARDCASTLR  igg 

"  Vat,  mein  dear  friend  Hardcastle  !"  exclaimed  Handel, 
breaking  in  upon  the  party ;  "  vat !  and  Mr.  Golley  Gibber 
too  !  and  Toctor,  Bepusch  as  veil !  Veil,  dat  is  gomical. 
And  how  vags  the  vorld  mit  you,  mein  dears  ?  Bray,  bray 
let  me  sit  down  a  moment !"  Pepusch  took  the  great  man's 
hat,  Colley  Gibber  took  his  stick,  and  old  Zachary  Hard- 
castle  wheeled  round  his  reading-chair,  which  was  some- 
what about  the  dimensions  of  that  in  which  kings  and 
queens  are  crowned,  and  then  the  great  man  sat  him  down. 
"  Veil,  I  thank  you,  gentlemens.  Now  I  am  at  mein  ease 
vonce  more.  'Bon  my  vord,  dat  is  a  bicture  of  a  ham  !  and 
I  have  brought  along  mit  me  a  nodable  abbetite." 

"  You  do  me  great  honor,  Mr.  Handel,"  said  the  host. 
"  I  take  this  early  visit  as  a  great  kindness.  It  is  ten  min- 
utes past  nine.  Shall  we  wait  more  for  Dr.  Arne  ?" 

"Let  us  give  him  another  five  minutes,"  says  Colley 
Gibber;  "he  is  too  great  a  genius  to  keep  time." 

"Let  us  put  it  to  the  vote,"  says  Pepusch,  smiling.  "  Who 
holds  up  hands  ?" 

"I  will  zecond  your  motion  wid  all  mein  heart,"  says 
Handel.  "I  will  hold  up  mein  feeble  hands  for  my  old 
friend  Gustos"  (Arne's  name  was  Augustine),  "for  I  know 
not  who  I  would  wait  for  over  and  above  mein  old  rival, 
Master  Dom"  (meaning  Thomas  Pepusch) ;  "  only,  by  your 
bermission,  I  vill  take  a  snag  of  your  ham  and  a  slice  of 
French  roll,  or  a  modicum  of  chicken ;  for,  to  dell  you  the 
honest  fact,  I  am  all  but  famished,  for  I  laid  me  down  on 
my  billow  in  bed  the  last  night  mitout  mein  supper,  at  the 
instance  of  mein  physician,  for  which  I  am  not  altogether 
inglined  to  extend  mein  fast  no  longer."  At  this  moment 
Arne's  footstep  being  heard  outside — "  Bresto  !  be  quick !" 
roared  Handel ;  "  fifteen  minutes  of  dime  is  bretty  well  for 
an  ad  libitum" 

Arne  enters,  a  chair  is  placed,  and  they  soon  fall  to.   "  So, 


190  HANDEL. 

sir,  I  presume  you  are  come  to  witness  the  trial  of  skill  at 
the  old  round  church?  I  understand  that  the  amateurs 
expect  a  pretty  round  contest,"  said  Arne. 

"  Gontest !"  echoed  Handel,  laying  down  his  knife  and 
fork,  "  no  doubt ;  your  amateurs  have  a  passion  for  gon- 
test.  Not  what  it  was  in  our  remembrance.  Hey,  mein 
friend  ?  Ha,  ha,  ha !" 

"  No,  sir ;  I  am  happy  to  say  those  days  of  envy,  bicker- 
ing, and  party  feeling  are  gone  and  past.  To  be  sure,  we 
had  enough  of  such  disgraceful  warfare.  It  lasted  too 
long." 

"  Why,  yes,  it  tid  last  too  long.  It  bereft  me  of  my  poor 
limbs ;  it  tid  bereave  me  of  that  vot  is  de  most  blessed 
gift  of  Him  vat  made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves"  (in  allusion 
to  the  paralysis  and  mental  alienation  of  1737).  "  And  for 
vat  ?  Vy,  for  nodings  in  the  world  bote  the  bleasure  and 
bastime  of  them  who,  having  no  wit,  nor  no  want,  set  at 
loggerheads  men  as  live  by  their  wits,  to  worry  and  de- 
stroy von  anodere  as  wild  beasts  in  the  Golloseum  in  the 
dimes  of  the  Romans." 

"  I  hope,  sir,"  said  Dr.  Pepusch,  who  had  evidently  been 
sitting  on  thorns,  "  you  do  not  include  me  among  those 
who  did  injustice  to  your  talents?" 

"  Nod  at  all,  nod  at  all ;  God  forbid !  I  am  a  great  ad- 
mirer of  the  airs  of  the  Peggars1  Ob&ra,  and  every  profes- 
sional gentleman  must  do  his  best  for  to  live.  Put  why 
play  the  Peggar  yourself,  Toctor,  and  adapt  old  ballad 
humstrum,  ven,  as  a  man  of  science,  you  could  gompose 
original  airs  of  your  own  ?  Here  is  mein  friend,  Gustus 
Arne,  who  has  made  a  road  for  himself  for  to  drive  along 
his  own  genius  to  the  Demple  of  Fame."  Then,  turning  to 
our  illustrious  Arne,  "  Mein  friend,  you  and  I  must  meet 
togedere  sometimes  before  it  is  long,  and  hold  a  tede-a- 
tede  of  old  days  vat  is  gone.  Oh  !  it  is  gomical,  now  dat 


THE  LAST  ACT.  191 

it  is  all  gone  by.  Do  not  you  remember  as  it  was  almost 
only  of  yesterday  ,dat  she-devil  Cuzzoni  and  dat  odere  pre- 
cious daughter  of  iniquity,  Beelzepup's  spoilt  child,  the 
bretty-faced  Faustine  ?  Oh,  the  mad  rage  vat  I  have  to 
answer  for !  vat  with  von  and  the  odere  of  dese  fine  ladies' 
airs  and  graces !  Again,  do  you  not  remember  dat  up- 
start buppy,  Senesino,  and  de  goxcomb  Farinelli  ?  Next, 
again,  mem  somedime  notable  rival,  Master  Bononcini  and 
old  Borbora  ?  All  at  var  mit  me,  and  all  at  var  mit  dem- 
selves;  such  a  gonfusion  of  rivalships,  and  doublefaced- 
ness,  and  hypogrisy,  and  malice,  vot  would  make  a  gom- 
ical  subject  for  a  boem  in  rhymes,  or  a  biece  for  the  stage, 
as  I  hopes  to  be  saved  !"* 

In  1751,  while  composing  Jephtha,  Handel  was  attacked 

TS.  with  that  peculiar  blindness  produced  by  gutta  sere- 
Act.  na.  Between  January  and  August,  this,  his  last  or- 
atorio, was  nevertheless  completed ;  again  and  again  with 
indomitable  ardor  he  seized  his  pen,  and  in  the  growing 
dimness  traced  the  last  choruses  with  his  own  hand.  The 
same  year  the  Messiah  was  twice  performed  for  the  Found- 
ling Hospital,  Handel  presiding  at  the  organ. 

In  1752  he  was  couched  for  the  third  and  last  time,  and 
at  first  he  was  tempted  to  believe  that  his  sight  was  re- 
turning; but  the  darkness  soon  settled  down  upon  him, 
and  toward  the  close  of  the  year  he  became  quite  blind. 

Beethoven  standing  deaf  in  the  middle  of  his  orchestra; 
Handel  turning  his  sightless  eyes  toward  the  sun ;  it  is  not 
easy  to  think  upon  either  without  emotion.  The  great  mas- 
ter presided  at  the  organ  to  the  last,  but  it  is  said  that  he 
could  never  hear  the  pathetic  air  allotted  to  blind  Samson, 
in  the  oratorio  of  that  name,  without  being  visibly  affected ; 

*  A  clever  fiction  quoted  by  V.  Schcelcher  from  Somerset  House  Gazett^ 
1823. 


192  HANDEL. 

we  quote  Milton's  well-known  lines  in  preference  to  the 
garbled  version  in  the  libretto  of  Samson : 

"  Oh  dark,  dark,  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  nooa. 
Irrecoverably  dark,  total  eclipse 
Without  all  hope  of  day ! 
Oh  first  created  Beam,  and  thou  great  Word, 
'  Let  there  be  light,'  and  light  was  over  all  ; 
Why  am  I  thus  bereaved  thy  prime  decree  ? 
The  sun  to  me  is  dark " 

When  Handel  became  conscious  that  his  blindness  was 
incurable,  he  was  perfectly  resigned,  and  seemed  to  know 
that  his  end  was  not  far  off.  With  the  exception  of  "  Zion 
now  her  head  shall  raise,"  and  "  Tune  your  harps,"  dictated 
to  Smith  for  the  Judas  Maccabceus,  he  almost  ceased  to 
compose,  but  not  to  play ;  and  he  was  as  active  as  ever 
in  organizing  the  performances  of  his  oratorios.  The  last 
years  of  his  life  were  also  the  most  lucrative.  He  often 
drove  home  at  night  in  a  coach  quite  heavy  with  bags 
of  silver  and  gold.  But  the  bags  of  silver  and  gold  were 
not  unfrequently  transferred  to  some  charitable  institution. 
Sometimes  it  was  the  Society  for  Poor  Musicians,  at  others 
the  Sons  of  the  Clergy,  and  very  often  the  Foundling  Hos- 
pital. 

His  friends  noticed  that  after  his  blindness,  instead  of  be- 
coming soured,  impatient,  or  irritable,  he  grew  gentle  and 
subdued.  He  desired  now  to  be  at  peace  with  all  men, 
showed  himself  more  than  ever  anxious  to  assist  poor  and 
suffering  people  by  the  performance  of  his  music,  and  look- 
ed forward  to  his  departure  without  anxiety  or  dismay. 
Latterly  his  thoughts  constantly  turned  upon  the  subject, 
and  he  was  heard  to  express  a  wish  that  "he  might  breathe 
his  last  on  Good  Friday,  in  hopes,"  he  said,  "of  meeting  his 
good  God,  his  sweet  Lord  and  Savior,  on  the  day  of  his 
resurrection." 


THE  LAST  ACT.  193 

On  the  6th  of  April,  1759,  at  Co  vent  Garden,  Handel,  be- 
ing in  his  seventy-fifth  year,  conducted  the  oratorio  of  the 
Messiah  for  the  last  time.  The  same  night  he  was  seized 
with  a  deadly  faintness,  and,  calling  for  his  will  while  in 
the  full  possession  of  his  reason,  he  added  a  codicil.  On 
Good  Friday,  April  13th,  it  being  the  anniversary  of  the 
first  performance  of  the  Messiah,  the  Public  Advertiser  has 
this  short  announcement :  "  Yesterday  morning  died  G.  F. 
Handel,  Esq."  This  is,  according  to  Schoelcher,  incorrect ; 
and  he  proceeds  to  affirm,  on  the  alleged  testimony  of  Dr. 
Warren,  the  physician  who  attended  him,  that  Handel  died 
late  on  Good  Friday  night.  The  question  is  exhausted  in 
Husk's  Preface  to  the  Handel  Festival  of  1868,  from  which 
it  appears  that  the  14th  is,  after  all,  the  right  date.  He  had 
always  longed  to  rest  in  the  old  Abbey  among  the  people 
who  had  made  room  for  him  in  their  homes  and  hearts. 

We  have  all  read  the  simple  inscription  beneath  his 
monument ; 

GEORGE  FREDERICK  HANDEL,  ESQTJIRB, 

BORN    FEBRUARY    XXIII.,  MDCLXXXIV. 

DIED    ON   GOOD   FRIDAY,  APRIL   XIV.,  MDCCLIX. 

1  -- 


GLUCK. 

Born  1714,  Died  1787. 


IIL 

I  SHALL  now  proceed  to  notice  in  succession  two  men 
who  exercised  a  vast  influence  over  the  course  and  prog- 
ress of  modern  music  in  the  eighteenth  century — GLUCK 
and  HAYDN  :  Gluck,  if  not  the  founder  of  the  modern  ope- 
ra, certainly  the  founder  of  the  German  opera ;  Haydn,  if 
not  the  founder  of  the  modern  orchestra,  certainly  the  foun- 
der of  the  modern  quartet  and  symphony. 

As  we  turn  over  the  well-known  batch  of  letters,  recent- 
79.       ly  translated  by  Lady  Wallace,  the  ghost  of  Chris- 
of  Gluck.  tophe  Gluck  looks  out  from  the  pages,  and  gradu- 
ally assumes  more  and  more  the  semblance  of  flesh  and 


PORTRAIT  OF  GLUCR.  195 

blood.  His  portrait,  finely  painted  by  Duplessis,  and  of 
which  a  miserable  travestie  is  affixed  to  the  above-named 
volume,  explains  the  man  and  many  of  his  abrupt  and  ex- 
ultant utterances :  he  is  looking  straight  out  of  the  canvas 
with  wide  and  eager  eyes — his  nostril  a  little  distended,  as 
of  one  eager  to  reply — his  mouth  shut,  but  evidently  on 
the  point  of  hastily  opening.  The  noble  brow  and  pro- 
nounced temples  carry  off  the  large  development  of  the 
cheek-bone,  and  slightly  heavy,  though  firm  and  expressive 
nose.  The  attitude  is  one  of  noble  and  expectant  repose, 
bat  has  in  it  all  the  suggestion  of  resolute  and  even  fiery 
action.  "  Madame,"  said  he,  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full 
height,  and  addressing  Marie  Antoinette,  then  dauphiness, 
who  inquired  after  his  opera  of  Armida, "  Madame,  il  est 
bientot  fini,  et  vraiment  ce  sera  superbe  !" 

These  words  might  be  written  at  the  foot  of  Duplessis's 
picture ;  they  evidently  express  one  of  Gluck's  most  char- 
acteristic moods.  His  life  seems  to  have  been  illumined 
and  buoyed  up  by  the  indomitable  sense  of  his  own  power. 
He  exults  in  his  music :  like  a  giant  refreshed  with  wine, 
he  rejoices  in  his  strength.  A  wretched  French  writer  has 
lately  mistaken  this  for  vanity.  It  is  the  vanity  of  the  ea- 
gle as  he  wheels  above  the  horde  of  small  birds,  and  re- 
joices to  be  alone  with  the  sun.  "  I  have  written,"  he  says, 
"  the  music  of  my  Armida  in  a  manner  which  will  prevent 
its  soon  growing  old."  If  ordinary  men  are  permitted  to 
be  conscious  of  life,  why  should  we  grudge  to  genius  the 
consciousness  of  its  own  immortality  ? 

Christophe  Willibald  Ritter  von  Gluck  was  the  son  of  a 
80          gamekeeper  in  the  service  of  Prince  Lobkowitz, 
in^staS'of*'  and  was  born  at  Weidenwang,  in  the  Upper 
MU«C  in  1714.   paiatinat6)  on  JulVj  2, 1714.     The  shadow  of  It- 
aly still  lay  far  and  wide  over  the  fields  of  German  music. 


I96  GLUCK. 

Bach  and  Handel,  it  is  true,  had  created  a  national  school 
of  sacred  music ;  but  then,  and  long  afterward,  Italy  was 
popular  with  the  masses.  Handel,  in  common  with  Gluck, 
and  even  Mozart  in  his  early  days,  wrote  operas  for  the 
people  in  the  Italian  style. 

Orchestral  music,  as  such,  was  not  as  yet  in  high  repute. 
Indeed,  the  orchestra  was  usually  eked  out  with  a  harpsi- 
chord, and  the  conductor  alternately  strummed  away  on 
the  keys  and  beat  time  on  the  back  of  his  instrument  to  a 
few  violins,  basses,  a  flute,  a  drum,  oboes,  and  trumpets. 

Cabinet  instrumental  music  had  only  reached  as  far  as 
trios ;  and  although  Correlli  and  Hasse  were  both  a  good 
deal  played  in  Germany,  yet,  until  the  string  quartet  came 
into  fashion,  the  combination  most  favorable  to  the  prog- 
ress of  cabinet  music  was  wanting. 

Choir-singing  and  organ-playing  were  far  more  advanced, 
and  it  was  to  this  department  that  Gluck,  in  common  with 
most  other  young  musicians,  had  to  look  for  a  maintenance. 
From  the  first,  the  musical  training  of  Gluck  was  happily 
varied  and  comprehensive.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he 
emerged  from  the  Jesuit  college  of  Kommotau,  where  he 
had  received  a  good  education,  and  been  taught  to  sing, 
and  to  play  the  organ,  the  violin,  and  the  harpsichord. 
Prague  was  at  that  time  famous  for  musical  discernment ; 
and  its  connoisseurs,  who  a  few  years  later  rejoiced  in  the 
title  of  Mozart's  favorite  public,  were  the  first  to  recognize 
and  to  support  Gluck.  But  they  supported  him  as  they 
supported  dozens  of  others.  They  only  saw  in  him  an  ex- 
cellent violin-player,  a  steady  chorister,  and  a  fair  organist, 
in  all  which  capacities  he  figured  at  the  Polish  convent  of 
Saint  Agnes.  Probably  there  was  nothing  more  to  see. 
He  was  groping  about  in  the  dark  himself,  and  had  not 
even  begun  to  break  into  the  track  of  his  future  glory. 
In  1736,  after  giving  a  few  concerts  in  the  neighborhood, 


GL UCK  AND  HA  TDK  197 

he  decided  upon  finishing  his  musical  education  at  Vienna 
under  the  guidance  of  such  masters  as  Caldara,  Fux,  and 
the  brothers  Conti.  Up  to  this  time  the  attention  of  Gluck 
had  been  impartially  divided  between  Italian  and  German 
influences;  but  Prince  Lobkowitz,  who  remembered  hi» 
old  gamekeeper,  and  took  a  kindly  interest  in  his  son,  in- 
troduced Christophe  to  the  Italian  prince  Melzi,  whose 
usual  residence  was  at  Milan ;  and  when  that  nobleman 
went  back,  Gluck  was  easily  prevailed  upon  to  accompany 
him  to  Italy.  He  soon  became  the  devoted  pupil  of  the 
well-known  Italian  composer  and  organist  SammartinL 
The  first  age,  even  of  genius,  is  more  imitative  and  recep- 
tive than  original  or  independent,  and  Gluck  began  to  pour 
forth  Italian  operas  to  Italian  audiences.  In  four  years  he 
had  produced  eight,  every  one  of  which  may  safely  be  for- 
gotten. They  were  all  successful,  and  success  then,  as 
now,  proved  a  ready  passport.  What  was  good  enough 
for  Italy  was  good  enough  for  London,  and  to  London  was 
Gluck,  now  aged  twenty-two,  summoned  by  the  managers 
of  the  Haymarket  Theatre. 

Here  he  fell  in  with  Handel,  who,  after  listening  to  one 
si.       of  his  operas,  the  Caduta  di  GiqantL  merely  ob- 

Gluck  and  J 

Haydn.  served  that  the  author  knew  no  more  of  counter- 
point than  his  cook.  This  may  have  been  true  enough, 
but  the  remark  was  hardly  appreciative.  Great  men  do 
not  always  look  at  genius  with  prophetic  eyes.  Weber 
failed  to  see  the  merits  of  Schubert.  Goethe,  sixty  of 
whose  songs  he  set  to  music,  took  no  notice  of  him.  Spohr 
never  fairly  appreciated  Mendelssohn.  We  must  not  won- 
der if  the  author  of  the  Messiah  failed  to  see,  in  such  feeble 
glimmer  of  transalpine  melody  as  may  be  found  in  the 
Artamene,  the  rising  sun  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice. 

Thus  it  was  from  Handel,  no  unfitting  Mentor,  that 


198  OLUCK. 

Gluck  received  the  first  blow  which  led  to  his  happy  dis 
enchantment  with  the  Italian  opera.  There  must  be  some- 
thing wrong;  henceforth  he  would  not  go  on  composing 
opera  after  opera  on  the  same  model.  Perhaps  the  model 
itself  might  be  a  wrong  one.  What  was  the  model  ?  A 
story,  told  as  much  as  possible  by  a  series  of  songs ;  dra- 
matic declamation  in  recitative  much  neglected;  orches- 
tral accompaniment  still  more  so ;  and,  worst  of  all,  the 
character  and  the  style  of  the  song  music  itself  not  neces- 
sarily in  keeping  with  the  words.  Any  taking  tune  seems 
to  have  done  for  almost  any  words ;  a  little  scraping  and 
strumming  by  way  of  accompaniments,  which  nobody  was 
supposed  to  attend  to,  and  r  opera,  le  voild  ! 

The  discovery  of  these  defects,  now  so  patent  to  all  the 
world,  was  the  second  and  last  blow  which  ruined  the 
credit  of  Italy  with  Gluck,  and  it  happened  on  this  wise. 
His  operas  had  hitherto  not  pleased  in  England.  He  now 
determined  to  please.  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  was  to  be  the 
triumph.  He  chose  the  best  bits  out  of  all  his  most  suc- 
cessful operas,  and  this  omnium  gatherum  was  to  be  the 
music  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe.  The  opera  was  a  misera- 
ble failure.  The  experiment  was  too  glaring,  although  it 
was,  after  all,  nothing  but  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
Italian  method. 

Gluck  perceived  henceforth  the  necessity  for  a  more  ex- 

g2          act  and  rigid  correspondence  between  the  drama 

cluck's  style.  an(j  ^Q  musjCt     ft  never  occurred  to  him  to 

abandon  the  form  of  opera  altogether  as  a  form  of  art 
which  was  false,  because  it  used  music  to  express  not  only 
the  emotion  which  accompanies  action,  but  action  itself; 
but  he  thought,  and  thought  rightly,  that  the  opera  might 
be  improved  philosophically,  by  at  least  making  the  music 
always  express  emotions  in  harmony  with  the  dramatic 


THE  OPERA.  A  DEFECTIVE  FORM  OF  ART.  199 

action  instead  of  any  emotion  in   connection   with   any 
action. 

Shortly  afterward,  passing  through  Paris,  Gluck  heard 
for  the  first  time  the  French  operas  of  Rameau ;  he  re- 
ceived a  new  element,  and  one  sadly  wanting  to  the  Ital- 
ian opera — the  dramatic  declamation  of  recitative.  This 
was  the  one  element  that  France  contributed  to  the  forma- 
tion of  the  opera  as  now  existing.  We  observe,  there- 
fore, three  sources  from  which  this  composer  derived  the 
elements  of  his  own  system.  His  early  training  in  Italy 
determined  the  importance  which  he  ever  afterward  at- 
tached to  pure  melody.  His  subsequent  acquaintance  with 
France  taught  him  the  value  of  dramatic  declamation. 
Germany  gave  him  harmony,  a  more  careful  study  of  the 
orchestra,  and  that  philosophical  spirit  which  enabled  him 
to  lay  the  foundation  of  the  distinctive  German  opera. 

We  have  often  expressed  an  opinion  that  opera  is  a  de- 
83  fective  form  of  art.  That  music  can  only  repre- 
defectm;™ a  8ent  tne  emotions  of  a  drama,  and  not  its  inci- 
form  of  Art.  jents>  js  a  truth  enunciated  alike  by  Gluck  the 
first,  and  Richard  Wagner  the  latest,  of  the  German  opera 
writers.  Gluck  writes, "  My  purpose  was  to  restrict  music 
to  its  true  omce,  that  of  ministering  to  the  expression  of  the 
poetry  without  interrupting  the  action." 

Wagner,  in  extolling  legendary  subjects  as  best  fitted 
for  the  opera,  observes  that  "  music  does  not  stop  at  the 
exterior  incidents,  but  expresses  the  underlying  emotion." 
Yet  neither  of  these  writers  seems  to  perceive  that  his  ad- 
mission is  fatal  to  the  very  existence  of  the  opera.  We 
may  fairly  ask  Gluck, "  Must  not  music,  when  sung  by  the 
person  acting,  always  interrupt  the  spontaneity  of  the  ac- 
tion ?"  And  we  may  say  to  Wagner, "  The  music  at  the 
opera,  in  so  far  as  it  is  acted,  loses  its  power  of  expressing 


200  GLUCK. 

the  emotion  of  an  action  by  becoming  itself  the  action,"  or, 
as  he  says, "  stopping  at  the  exterior  incident."  The  sun  is 
distinct  from  the  planets  which  it  illumines.  The  sphere 
of  musical  emotion  is  equally  distinct  from  that  of  dramatic 
action.  The  two  spheres  may  have  important  mutual  re- 
lations, but  they  must  not  be  confounded. 

A  situation  can  be  expressed  by  action  and  language; 
the  emotion  of  the  situation  can  be  expressed  by  music ; 
but  music  can  not  express  a  situation,  and  we  must  not  try 
to  make  it  do  so  by  making  the  actor  sing.  People  do  not 
go  about  the  world  singing  incidents ;  people  do  not  wail 
out  melodious  strains  in  the  midst  of  consumptive  agonies. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  in  reply  to  these  remarks, "If the 
opera  is  a  false  form  of  art,  because  men  do  not  sing  off,  as 
they  do  on,  the  stage,  is  not  the  whole  drama  false  in  art, 
since  men  do  not  speak  and  act  off,  as  they  do  on,  the 
stage?"  No.  The  drama  is  not  false  in  art,  because  words 
and  actions  are  fitted  to  express  situations,  do  actually  en- 
ter into  all  situations ;  it  is  for  the  dramatist  to  represent 
and  combine  them  in  the  most  forcible  and  natural  manner 
which  the  necessary  limits  of  his  art  will  allow.  Even  in 
the  case  of  soliloquy  no  radical  violence  is  done  to  nature, 
since  people  do  really  sometimes  think  aloud ;  besides,  it  is 
universally  admitted  that  language  and  action  are  the  fit 
exponents  of  thought  and  incident,  while  it  must  not  be 
for  a  moment  conceded  that  music  can  express  definite 
thoughts  or  incidents,  but  only  the  emotions  which  accom- 
pany these.  The  fallacy  that  music  expresses  incidents  or 
any  definite  thought  whatever  lies  at  the  root  of  all  the 
nonsense  that  is  talked  about  this  tune  meaning  the  sea, 
and  the  moon,  Vesuvius,  or  the  scarlet  fever. 

Nor,  to  return  to  the  drama,  is  undue  violence  done  to 
the  mind  by  years  being  supposed  to  have  elapsed  between 
the  acts  of  a  play,  as  it  is  not  attempted  in  any  way  to  rep 


RISE  OF  THE  OERMAN  OPERA.  201 

resent  the  passage  of  those  years  before  the  public.  That 
is  left  to  the  imagination,  and  no  exception  can  be  taken 
to  the  representation  of  that  which  is  not  represented.  In 
Macbeth,  as  produced  some  time  ago  by  Mr.  Phelps,  no 
man  could  take  exception  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
ghost  of  Banquo  was  represented,  because  the  ghost  never 
appeared  at  all.  It  was  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  au- 
dience. If  they  do  not  conceive  them  aright,  it  is  no  busi- 
ness of  his. 

We  submit,  then,  that  the  drama  and  the  opera  have 
separate  foundations,  or,  rather,  the  one  has  a  foundation 
which  the  other  lacks.  It  is  perfectly  fair  in  all  forms  of 
art  to  leave  to  the  imagination  what  can  not  be  expressed, 
but  it  is  perfectly  false  in  any  form  of  art  to  try  and  make 
a  power — like  music,  for  instance — express  what  it  is  in- 
capable of  expressing. 

But  it  is  time  to  return  to  Gluck.  Disconcerted  by  the 
^  failure  ofPyramus  and  Thisbe,  perhaps  with  Han- 
GeramOp-  del's  music  fresh  in  his  mind,  and  strongly  impress- 
ed with  the  importance  of  copious  recitative  and 
plenty  of  declamation,  after  the  manner  of  the  French,  he 
entered  upon  his  transition  period.  From  Telemacco  (1 750) 
to  H  Re  Pastore,  produced  at  Vienna,  1756,  we  may  notice 
a  continuous  development  in  the  direction  of  the  new  Ger- 
man opera  style.  Between  1756  and  1762  he  appears,  like 
a  man  struggling  with  the  apprehension  of  new  ideas,  to 
have  tried  various  experiments.  We  can  not  regard  his 
comic  operas  as  any  thing  but  tentative ;  they  bear  witness 
more  to  his  versatile  activity  than  to  his  judgment.  The 
Pilgrims  of  Mecca  might  indeed  have  established  the  fame 
of  a  lesser  composer,  but  it  is  little  better  than  waste  from 
the  author  of  Orpheus  and  Eury dice. 

The  time  now  drew  nigh  for  that  fortunate  conjunction 


202  OLUCK. 

of  circumstances  upon  which  genius  itself  is  obliged  to 
wait.  In  1762  Gluck  at  last  met  the  man  capable  of  un- 
derstanding him,  and  of  producing  a  libretto  after  his  own 
heart.  This  man  was  Calzabigi,  the  writer  of  Orpheus  and 
Ewrydice,  Alceste,  and  other  librettos  belonging  to  Gluck's 
finest  period.  The  Orpheus  and  Alceste  were  produced  at 
Vienna  with  that  amount  of  success  which  the  author's 
name  could  by  this  time  command.  But  Gluck,  with  his 
strong  feeling  for  dramatic  declamation,  was  dissatisfied 
with  the  German  actors  and  with  the  German  stage,  and 
turned  his  eyes  toward  Paris.  His  overtures  were  gladly 
met  by  the  directors  of  the  French  opera,  and  the  event 
proved  their  discernment. 

The  success  of  Gluck  at  Paris  has  to  be  accounted  for. 
86-      Although  Paris  has  generally  admitted  the  results 

Gluck  in  fe  .    J 

Paris,  of  German  music,  as  it  has  in  due  time  appropriated 
the  results  of  German  philosophy,  it  has  seldom  been  for- 
ward to  acknowledge  any  new  development  of  either.  Ger- 
man composers  have  usually  found  themselves  specially 
miserable  in  Paris  ;  Mozart,  Beethoven,  Schumann,  Wag- 
ner, have  each  in  their  day  been  snuffed  out  by  the  Parisian 
public,  and  only  enjoyed  a  tardy  recognition  when  it  could 
no  longer  be  withheld.  Yet  both  Gluck  and  Haydn  were 
from  the  first  feted  and  admired  by  at  least  important  sec- 
tions of  the  French  musical  world. 

How  can  this  be  explained  in  the  case  of  Gluck  ?  We 
must  remember,  in  the  first  place,  that  Gluck  hoisted  no 
opposition  flag.  Of  the  deep  lines  which  have  been  since 
drawn,  and  rightly  drawn,  between  German,  Italian,  and 
French  music,  hardly  a  trace  at  this  time  existed. 

Modern  music  was  not  sufficiently  developed  for  each  na- 
tion to  appropriate  its  own  specialty,  and  what  existed  of 
music  was  cosmopolitan  rather  than  national.  So  little 


QL  UCK  IN  PARTS.  203 

conscious  was  Gluck  of  founding  a  school,  that  he  writes 
innocently  to  his  old  pupil,  Marie  Antoinette : 

"It  has  been  no  pretension  of  mine,  though  some  have  reproached  me 
with  it,  to  come  here  to  give  lessons  to  the  French  in  their  own  language. 
I  thought  that  I  might  attempt  with  French  words  the  new  style  of  music 
that  I  have  adopted  in  my  three  last  Italian  (sic)  operas.  I  see  with  sat- 
isfaction that  the  language  of  nature  is  the  universal  language. " 

Hence  we  observe  that  he  had  the  singular  good  fortune 
of  entering  Paris  under  the  auspices  of  the  Dauphiness 
Marie  Antoinette,  and  without  a  thought  of  rivalry,  but 
simply  with  the  naive  intention  of  improving  the  French 
music ;  and  this  pacific  garb,  no  doubt,  greatly  conduced 
to  his  courteous  reception. 

The  political  revolution  was  also  favorable  to  a  revolu- 
tion in  art.  The  old  fabric  of  the  French  monarchy  was 
ready  to  crumble.  The  Encyclopaedists  had  set  up  a  fer- 
ment of  new  ideas  throughout  the  country,  which  not  only 
pointed  to  an  abuse,  but  had  a  remedy  to  propose.  The 
signs  of  the  times  were  not  hard  to  read,  yet  no  one  seem- 
ed to  read  them.  There  was  something  in  the  very  air 
which  told  of  imminent  change.  None  escaped  the  subtle 
influence.  The  doomed  palace  itself  was  full  of  it.  And 
the  courtiers,  in  listening  to  Rousseau's  Devin  du  Village, 
in  admiring  a  return  to  nature,  in  craving  for  ideals  as  far 
as  possible  removed  from  the  effete  civilization  of  their 
own  age  and  country,  in  applauding  the  classical  but  rev- 
olutionary operas  of  Gluck,  were  like  children  playing  with 
the  sparks  that  were  destined  presently  to  burn  the  house 
down. 

Meanwhile  Gluck  had  it  all  his  own  way.  Armed  with 
a  French  libretto  by  Du  Rollet,  protected  by  the  mantle 
of  royalty,  and  filled  unconsciously,  like  so  many  others, 
with  the  revolutionary  spirit,  he  produced  his  opera  of 
Iphigenia  in  Aulis.  The  orchestra,  as  orchestras  will,  tiV 


204  OLUCK. 

tered  over  his  scores,  and  grumbled  at  the  instrumentation, 
but  ended  by  playing  them,  and  playing  them  well.  The 
audience,  as  audiences  will,  acted  philosopher  on  the  first 
night,  but  applauded  vigorously  on  the  second.  The  Abbe 
Arnault,  a  great  leader  of  taste,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed, 
"  With  such  music  one  might  found  a  new  religion."  The 
orchestral  effects  of  the  Iphigenia  were  found  somewhat 
difficult  to  understand  at  times,  but  deemed  vastly  learn- 
ed by  the  connoisseurs ;  while  the  apostrophe  sung  by  Ag- 
amemnon to  the  Creator  of  Light,  as  also  the  celebrated 
phrase, "  I  hear  within  my  breast  the  cry  of  nature,"  were 
considered  quite  sublime  by  the  general  public. 

It  was  the  midsummer  of  1774.  The  Parisians,  then  as 
now,  were  in  the  habit  of  flying  from  the  white  heat  of  the 
city  to  the  cool  retreats  of  their  suburban  villas,  but  the 
Opera-house  still  continued  to  be  crammed  nightly.  Gluck 
was  called  the  Hercules  of  music.  Admirers  dogged  his 
footsteps  in  the  streets.  His  appearance  at  public  assem- 
blies was  the  sign  for  loud  acclamations.  And  a  few  priv- 
ileged ones  were  admitted  to  the  rehearsal  of  his  new  op- 
era Alceste,  to  see  him  conduct  in  his  night-cap  and  dress- 
ing-gown. 

But  the  enemy  was  not  far  off.  The  musicians  who  had 
86.  grumbled  at  his  scores,  the  old  school  who  had 
andcplcci-  ^een  shocked,  and  the  second-rate  composers  who 
had  been  shelved,  were  only  biding  their  time  to 
organize  an  open  attack.  The  Italian  Piccini  was  pitted 
against  Gluck.  There  were  powerful  leaders  on  both  sides, 
and  the  chances  at  one  time  seemed  about  equal.  Marie 
Antoinette  (Gluckist)  was  influential,  but  so  was  Madame 
du  Barri  (Piccinist),  the  king's  mistress;  PAbbe  Arnault 
(Gluckist)  was  sarcastic,  but  Marmontel  (Piccinist)  was 
witty ;  Du  Rollet  was  diplomatic,  but  La  Harpe  was  elc- 


OLUCKISTS  AXD  PICCINISTS.  205 

quent ;  and  the  storm  burst  thus  upon  the  unsuspecting 
Gluck.     During  his  absence  from  Paris,  he  learned  that 
Piccini  had  been  commissioned  to  compose  music  for  the 
game  opera  (Roland)  upon  which  he  himself  was  engaged. 
Gluck  tore  up  his  unfinished  score  in  a  rage,  and  declared 
open  war  upon  the  Italian  school.     The  boards  of  the  op- 
era became  the  scene  of  hot  contentions,  and  the  rival  par- 
tisans abused  and  bullied  each  other  like  school-boys.     "  I 
know  some  one,"  says  Gluck, "  who  will  give  dinners  and 
suppers  to  three  fourths  of  Paris  to  gain  proselytes  for  M. 
PiccinL     Marmontel,  who  tells  stories  so  well,  will  tell  one 
more  to  explain  to  the  whole  kingdom  the  exclusive  merits 
of  M.  Piccini."     "  The  famous  Gluck,"  wrote  La  Harpe, 
"  may  puff  his  own  compositions,  but  he  can  not  prevent 
them  from  boring  us  to  death."     And  the  wags  of  Paris, 
who  looked  on   and  thought  of  the  difference  between 
tweedledum  and  tweedledee,  named  the  street  in  which 
Gluck  lived  "  Rue  du  Grand  Hurleur,"  while  Piccini's  and 
Marmontel's  quartiers  were  nicknamed  respectively  "  Rue 
des  Petits  Chants"  and  "Rue  des  Mauvaises  Paroles." 
But,  pleasant  and  exciting  as  all  this  must  have  been,  it 
had  its  inconveniences.     Piccini  was  very  well,  but  Paris 
could  not  afford  to  lose  Gluck,  and  Gluck  declined  at  first 
to  compose  as  Piccini's  rival.     At  this  crisis,  a  bright  idea 
occurred  to  Berton,  the  new  opera  director :  could  not  the 
rival  maestros  be  induced  to  compose  an  opera  jointly? 
He  asked  them  both  to  dinner,  and  inter  pocula  all  seemed 
to  go  well.     But  it  was  only  the  convivial  lull  that  was  to 
precede  a  post-prandial  storm.     It  was  arranged  that  each 
should  compose  an  opera  of  his  own  on  the  subject  of  Iphi- 
genia  in  Tauris.     In  1779  Gluck  produced  his  second  Iphi- 
genia  first,  and  Piccini  was  so  conscious  of  its  superior  ex- 
cellence that  he  shut  his  own  opera  up  in  a  portfolio,  which 
was  not  opened  until  two  years  later,  when  the  Italiap 


206  OLUCK. 

Iphigenia  was  brought  out,  and  fell  quite  flat.  Vce  metis ! 
The  Italian  school  seemed  fairly  vanquished ;  but  even  now 
Fortune  was  turning  her  capricious  wheel.  Four  months 
afterward  Gluck  produced  his  Echo  and  Narcissus,  which, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  Gluckists,  fell  as  flat  as  Piccini's 
Iphigenia. 

He  was  offered  many  consolations,  and  Marie  Antoinette 
ST.        besought  him  eagerly  to  stay  and  retrieve  the  po- 

OldAge  '     _'7/,  J 

and  Death,  sition  which  seemed  for  the  moment  lost ;  but  he 
was  getting  old  and  fretful ;  all  his  life  long  he  had  been 
the  spoiled  child  of  Fortune,  and  he  was  less  able  than  most 
men  to  bear  any  reverses.  He  had  amassed  considerable 
wealth,  and  in  1780  left  Paris  for  Vienna;  but  he  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  happy  in  his  old  age.  Nervous  mal- 
adies, long  kept  off  by  dint  of  sheer  excitement  and  inces- 
sant labor,  seemed  now  to  grow  upon  him  rapidly.  He 
had  always  been  fond  of  wine,  but  at  a  time  when  his  sys- 
tem was  least  able  to  bear  it  he  began  to  substitute  bran- 
dy. The  very  thought  of  action  after  his  recent  failure  in 
Paris  filled  him  with  disgust.  He  did  nothing,  but  his  in- 
activity was  not  repose,  and  the  fire  which  had  been  a 
shining  light  for  so  many  years,  now  in  its  smouldering 
embers  seemed  to  waste  and  consume  him  inwardly.  His 
wife,  who  was  ever  on  the  watch,  succeeded  in  keeping 
stimulants  away  from  the  poor  old  man  for  weeks  togeth- 
er ;  but  one  day  a  friend  came  to  dine.  After  dinner  cof- 
fee was  handed  round,  and  liqueurs  were  placed  upon  the 
table.  The  temptation  was  too  strong.  Gluck  seized  the 
bottle  of  brandy,  and  before  his  wife  could  stop  him  he 
had  drained  its  contents.  That  night  he  fell  down  in  a  fit 
of  apoplexy,  and  he  died  November  25th,  1787,  aged  sev- 
enty-three. 


ESTIMATE  OF  HIS  CHARACTER.  207 

Gluck  has  been  hardly  handled  by  his  French  critics. 
88.         To  be  a  successful  German  musician  in  France 

Estimate  of  .  ,  . 

his  character,  is  no  doubt  a  crime ;  a  hot  temper  is  perhaps 
another;  but  when  we  read  that  Gluck  was  consumedly 
vain,  full  of  a  malevolent  egotism,  that  he  seized  every  oc- 
casion to  injure  his  rivals,  that  he  was  the  enemy  of  rising 
or  foreign  merit,  that  he  tried  to  stifle  Mozart  and  to  sneer 
down  Piccini,  we  require  an  explanation.  Some  of  us  may 
be  consoled  by  the  reflection  that  these  assertions — com- 
ing from  M.  Felix  Clement,  whose  book  is  more  distin- 
guished for  bulk  than  benevolence,  for  screams  and  com- 
monplaces than  for  criticism  or  candor — are  unfounded. 

The  vanity  of  Gluck  consisted  in  the  consciousness  of 
his  own  superiority.  His  malevolent  egotism  was  merely 
the  ebullition  of  a  hasty  temper  stung  into  self-assertion 
by  detraction  and  abuse.  When  party  spirit  ran  so  high 
at  Paris  between  Gluckists  and  Piccinists,  without  imput- 
ing to  either  malevolent  egotism,  we  might  expect  to  find 
the  rivals  themselves  not  always  calm  and  measured  in 
their  language.  But,  in  truth,  Gluck  was  a  single-minded 
man,  devoted  to  music  and  generous  to  other  musicians. 
In  his  sixty-fourth  year  he  writes,  not  to  his  own  support- 
ers, but  to  "  the  friends  of  music  in  Paris"  —  Paris,  the 
stormy  scene  of  his  first  contentions  with  the  Italian  fac- 
tions; Paris,  the  witness  of  his  early  triumphs  and  his  late 
discomfiture;  Paris,  the  place  where  he  is  said  to  have 
shown  nothing  but  malevolent  egotism : 

"M.  Gluck  is  very  sensible  of  the  politeness  of  Messieurs  les  amateurs 
and  M.  Cambini.  He  has  the  honor  to  assure  these  gentlemen  that  it  will 
give  him  much  pleasure  to  hear  the  performance  of  M.  Cambini's  scene 
from  Armifla  [the  subject  of  one  of  his  own  operas].  It  would  be  indeed 
tyranny  in  music  to  seek  to  prevent  authors  from  bringing  forward  their 
productions.  M.  Gluck  enters  into  rivalry  with  no  one,  and  it  will  always 
give  him  pleasure  to  listen  to  music  better  than  his  own.  The  progress 
of  art  ought  alone  to  be  considered." 


208  OLUCK. 

An  old  broken-down  man,  he  sat  in  a  box  and  applaud- 
ed the  young  Mozart's  new  symphonies.  He  extolled  Mo- 
zart's music  in  Viennese  circles,  and  asked  him  and  his  wife 
to  dinner ;  and  Mozart  speaks  of  him  every  where  in  his 
letters  in  terms  of  reverence  and  affection.  It  is  said  that 
he  was  fond  of  money,  and  he  was,  no  doubt,  in  his  later 
years  unhappily  addicted  to  wine;  but  his  purse-strings 
were  often  loosed  for  the  needy,  and  many  of  his  detract- 
ors were  fed  at  his  hospitable  board.  Under  trying  cir- 
cumstances, he  always  maintained  the  dignity  and  inde- 
pendence of  his  art ;  and  the  favorite  of  princes  and  court- 
iers, he  knew  how  to  enlist  sympathy  without  truckling  to 
power. 

M.  Felix  Clement  is  facetious  on  the  subject  of  the  in- 
temperance which  marked  the  failing  years  of  a  man  whose 
nerves  had  been  shattered  by  hard  work  and  the  excite- 
ment inseparable  from  his  vocation.  We  prefer  to  recall 
one  who,  in  the  midst  of  an  immoral  court,  remained  com- 
paratively pure,  and  who,  in  an  age  of  flippant  atheism,  re- 
tained to  the  last  his  trust  in  God  and  his  reverence  for 
religion. 


HAYDN. 

Born  1732,  Died  1809. 


t>    , 

X"/ 

a  JL- 

/  s 

U    £1 

,,        •* 

/ 

V              1 

IV. 

GLUCK  and  Haydn  worked  parallel  to  each  other.     We 

so.         are  not  aware  that  they  ever  met.     Both  car- 
Likeness  and     .  J 
Difference,      ned  out  great  reforms — Gluck  in  the  sphere  of 

opera,  Haydn  in  symphonic  ancl  instrnmental  music.  Both 
were  adored  in  foreign  countries :  while  Gluck  was  known 
in  England  and  worshiped  in  France,  Haydn  was  known  in 
France  and  worshiped  in  England.  Both,  however,  were 
recognized  and  admired  in  Germany ;  both  were  generous 
in  their  recognition  of  others ;  both  were  the  friends  of 
Mozart ;  both  knew  how  to  be  popular  with  princes  with- 
out forfeiting  the  respect  of  equals ;  both  could  compose 
14 


210  HAYDN. 

for  the  people  without  pandering  to  what  was  vicious  or 
ignorant  in  their  tastes ;  both  began  as  "  poor  devils"  (to 
use  Haydn's  phrase),  and  lived  to  enjoy  an  easy  compe- 
tence ;  and  both  descended  to  the  grave,  after  long,  labo- 
rious lives,  heavy  with  years  and  honors — Gluck  dying 
1787,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three ;  Haydn  1809,  at  seventy- 
seven. 

We  may  thus  draw  an  outward  parallel  between  the 
founder  of  the  German  opera  and  the  inventor  of  the  Ger- 
man symphony ;  but  the  parallel  belongs  more  to  the  ca- 
reer than  to  the  character,  to  the  work  than  to  the  person, 
af  the  composers.  As  we  turn  from  that  eager,  restless, 
ambitious  face  by  Duplessis,  to  the  placid,  easy-going,  and 
contented  profile  by  Dance,  the  contrast  between  Chevalier 
Gluck  and  "  Papa  Haydn,"  as  Mozart  loved  to  called  him, 
is  complete. 

The  face  of  Haydn  is  remarkable  quite  as  much  for  what 
it  does  not  as  for  what  it  does  express.  No  ambition,  no 
avarice,  no  impatience,  very  little  excitability,  no  malice. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  indicates  a  placid  flow  of  even  health, 
an  exceeding  good  humor,  combined  with  a  vivacity  which 
seems  to  say, "  I  must  lose  my  temper  sometimes,  but  I  can 
not  lose  it  for  long ;"  a  geniality  which  it  took  much  to  dis- 
turb, and  a  digestion  which  it  took  more  to  impair ;  a  pow- 
er of  work  steady  and  uninterrupted ;  a  healthy  devotional 
feeling ;  a  strong  sense  of  humor ;  a  capacity  for  the  en- 
joyment of  all  the  world's  good  things,  without  any  morbid 
craving  for  irregular  indulgence ;  affections  warm,  but  not 
intense ;  a  presence  accepted  and  beloved ;  a  mind  content- 
ed almost  any  where,  attaching  supreme  importance  to  one, 
and  one  thing  only — the  composing  of  music — and  pursu- 
ing this  object  with  the  steady  instinct  of  one  who  believed 
himself  to  have  come  into  the  world  for  this  purpose  alone 
— such  was  Francis  Joseph  Haydn,  born  on  the  31st  of 


EARLY  DAYS.  211 

March,  1732,  at  Rohrau,  a  little  village  about  thirty  miles 
from  Vienna,  on  the  confines  of  Austria  and  Hungary. 

The  father,  Matthias  Haydn,  coachmaker  and  parish  clerk, 
go  had  married  a  domestic  servant  in  the  household 
Early  Days.  of  one  count  Harrach.  He  was  fond  of  the  harp, 
and  after  the  day's  work  he  delighted  to  sing  and  play 
while  Frau  Haydn  sat  busily  knitting,  and  joined  in  occa- 
sionally, after  the  manner  of  German  fraus.  Joseph,  when 
about  five  years  old,  began  to  assist  on  these  occasions 
with  two  pieces  of  stick,  grinding  away  in  perfect  time, 
like  any  real  fiddler.  These  wooden  performances  were 
not  thrown  away,  for  one  day  a  Hamburg  schoolmaster 
named  Franck  happened  to  see  the  child  thus  earnestly  em- 
ployed, and  ascertaining  that  he  had  a  good  voice,  took  him 
off  to  Hamburg,  and  promised  to  educate  him,  to  the  great 
delight  of  the  honest  coachmaker. 

Franck  seems  to  have  taught  him  well,  although  he 
knocked  him  about  a  good  deal ;  but  the  boy  was  a  merry 
and  industrious  little  fellow,  and  did  not  mind,  providing 
he  was  allowed  to  transfer  the  blows  in  play-hours  to  a  big 
drum,  on  which  he  practiced  incessantly.  When  he  was 
about  nine  years  old,  Renter,  the  Capettmeister  of  St.  Ste- 
phen's, Vienna,  happened  to  be  dining  with  Franck,  and 
Joseph  was  produced  as  a  musical  prodigy.  Franck  had 
taught  him  to  sing,  and  all  that  his  master  knew  he  could 
do.  At  the  close  of  his  song  the  delighted  Reuter  cried 
"  Bravo  !  But,  my  little  man,  how  is  it  you  can  not  shake?" 
"  How  can  you  expect  me  to  shake  when  Herr  Franck  him- 
self can  not  ?"  replied  the  enfant  terrible.  "  Come  here, 
then ;"  and,  drawing  the  child  to  him,  he  showed  him  how 
to  hold  his  breath,  and  then  make  the  necessary  vibrations 
in  his  throat  once  or  twice,  and  the  boy  caught  the  trick 
and  began  shaking  like  a  practiced  singer.  The  CapeGmew- 


212  HAYDN. 

ter  had  found  a  new  star  for  his  cathedral  choir,  and  Haydn 
was  carried  off  in  triumph  to  Vienna.  Here  he  gained  in- 
struction in  singing,  and  an  acquaintance  with  sacred  mu- 
sic ;  but  it  was  no  part  of  Reuter's  plan  to  teach  him  the 
theory  of  music.  At  the  age  of  thirteen  he  tried  to  com- 
pose a  mass,  at  which  his  master  merely  laughed ;  indeed, 
Haydn  was  wholly  uninstructed  in  composition,  and  no 
doubt  the  mass  was  poor  stuff.  But  genius  was  not  to  be 
daunted ;  money  was  hoarded  up,  the  "  Gradus  ad  Parnas- 
sum"  and  the  "  Parfait  Maitre  de  Chapelle,"  by  Mattheson, 
were  purchased,  and  with  these  two  dull  and  verbose  damp- 
ers to  enthusiasm  the  lad  set  to  work  to  discover  the  sci- 
ence of  harmony.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  what 
progress  he  made  ;  we  only  know  that  he  worked  away  for 
eight  years.  At  the  end  of  that  time  his  voice  broke,  and 
he  was  turned  away  by  Reuter  on  quite  a  frivolous  pre- 
text. Some  say  the  master  was  afraid  of  finding  a  rival  in 
the  pupil,  but  we  think  this  improbable,  as  at  this  time 
there  is  no  proof  that  Haydn  had  arrived  at  any  special 
excellence  in  composition ;  but  Reuter  was. a  selfish,  and,  in 
Haydn's  case,  a  disappointed  man.  From  the  first  he  had 
desired  to  perpetuate,  by  the  usual  means,  the  fine  soprano 
of  his  pupil,  and  thus  retain  him  in  his  service  forever. 
Happily  this  project  was  firmly  withstood  by  the  parents ; 
and  Reuter,  who  was  no  doubt  annoyed,  kept  the  boy  as 
long  as  he  could  sing,  and  when  his  voice  broke,  not  car- 
ing to  trouble  himself  with  any  further  connection,  picked 
a  quarrel  with  him  and  turned  him  out.  But  the  choris- 
ter's sweet  voice  was  known  to  many  who  came  to  wor- 
ship at  the  cathedral  of  St.  Stephen,  and  when  Keller,  the 
barber,  heard  that  Haydn  was  a  homeless  wanderer,  he 
came  forward  and  offered  him  free  board  and  lodging. 

In  a  little  upper  room,  with  a  little  worm-eaten  harpsi- 
chord, Haydn  pursued  his  studies,  and  down  stairs  he 


METASTASIO  ASD  PORPORA.  213 

dressed  and  powdered  away  at  the  wigs.  Unhappily,  there 
was  something  besides  wigs  down  stairs — there  was  Anne 
Keller,  the  barber's  daughter,  to  whom,  in  a  luckless  hour, 
he  promised  marriage,  and  of  whom  more  presently. 

By-and-by  things  began  to  improve.     He   played  the 
91.         violin  in  one  church,  the  organ  in  another,  and 

Metastasio  '  / 

and  Porpora.  got  a  few  pupils.  Vienna  was  not  the  city  to 
allow  a  good  musician  to  starve,  and  Haydn  soon  found 
those  who  could  appreciate  and  help  him.  He  left  Keller, 
took  a  small  attic  in  a  large  house,  and,  as  luck  would  have 
it,  in  the  state  apartments  of  that  very  house  lived  the 
great  poeta  Cesareo,  or,  as  we  should  say,  poet  laureate  of 
the  day — Metastasio.  Through  the  poet  Haydn's  good 
fortune  began :  he  introduced  him  to  the  Venetian  embas- 
sador's  mistress,  a  rare  musical  enthusiast,  and  in  her  cir- 
cle he  met  the  famous  Italian  singing-master  Porpora,  then 
a  very  crusty  old  gentleman,  who  appears  to  have  occu- 
pied at  Vienna  the  same  post  of  musical  dictator  and  privi- 
leged censor  which  Rossini  for  so  many  years  held  in  Paris. 
The  relations  between  Haydn  and  the  Porpora  were 
sufficiently  amusing.  Madame  Sand,  in  "  Consuelo,"  has 
sketched  them  in  her  own  incomparable  way.  Of  course 
Porpora  could  have  nothing  to  say  to  so  lowly  a  personage 
as  Joseph  Haydn.  But  he  was  always  meeting  him.  They 
even  lived  in  the  same  house  for  some  time,  for  they  both 
accompanied  the  embassador  to  the  Manensdorf  baths  for 
the  season.  However,  Haydn  had  found  his  man  in  the 
Porpora,  and  was  not  slow  to  take  his  cue.  He  wanted  in- 
struction :  no  one  in  Italy  or  Germany  could  give  it  better 
than  Porpora ;  so  he  cleaned  Porpora's  boots,  trimmed  his 
wig  to  perfection,  brushed  his  coat,  ran  his  errands,  and 
was  his  very  humble  and  devoted  servant.  Before  such 
attention  as  this  the  old  man  at  last  gave  way.  Haydn 


214  HAYDN. 

became  the  master's  constant  companion,  disciple,  and  ac- 
companyist,  and  the  benefits  which  he  derived  in  return 
were  soon  manifested  in  the  increased  salableness  of  his 
compositions. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  Haydn  composed  his  first  string- 

9^       ed  quartet.     It  consists  of  a  number  of  short  move- 

Qnartete.  menfcSj  an(j  <joe8  no^  <Jiffer  materially  from  other 

cabinet  music  of  the  period,  save  in  being  written  for  four 
instruments.  Let  any  one  take  up  the  famous  eighty-four 
quartets,  and  trace  the  growth  of  the  master's  mind,  and 
he  will  be  astonished  how  slow,  and  yet  how  steady,  is  the 
development.  Nothing  hurried — no  torch  blown  by  the 
wind — but  a  lamp,  well  guarded  from  gusts  and  currents, 
slowly  consuming  an  abundant  supply  of  oil.  It  is  not  till 
we  get  past  the  No.  50's  that  all  traces  of  the  Boccherini 
school  begin  to  disappear ;  the  movements  become  fewer, 
but  longer,  and  yet  quite  symphonic  in  their  development, 
until  we  break  upon  such  perfect  gems  as  63 ;  while  in  77, 
78,  81,  the  master  reaches  that  perfect  form  and  freedom 
of  harmony  which  is  observed  in  the  quartets  of  Mozart 
and  Beethoven. 

As  quartets,  Haydn's  have  never  been  surpassed.  Mo- 
zart has  been  more  rich,  Beethoven  more  obscure  and  sub- 
lime, Spohr  more  mellifluous  and  chromatic,  Schubert  more 
diffuse  and  luxuriant,  Mendelssohn  more  orchestral  and 
passionate,  but  none  have  excelled  Haydn  in  completeness 
of  form,  in  fine  perception  of  the  capacities  of  the  four  in- 
struments, in  delicate  distribution  of  parts  to  each,  and  in 
effects  always  legitimate — often  tender,  playful,  and  pa- 
thetic— sometimes  even  sublime. 

At  night  the  young  minstrel,  accompanied  by  two 
friends,  used  to  wander  about  the  streets  of  Vienna  by 


A  TEMPEST.  215 

93  moonlight,  and  serenade  with  trios  of  his  compo- 
A  Tempest.  sjtion  jjjs  friends  and  patrons. 

One  night  he  happened  to  stop  under  the  window  of 
Bernardone  Curtz,  the  director  of  the  theatre.  Down  rush- 
ed the  director  in  a  state  of  great  excitement. 

"  Who  are  you  ?"  he  shrieked. 

"Joseph  Haydn." 

"  Who's  music  is  it  ?" 

"Mine!" 

"  The  deuce  it  is !  at  your  age,  too !" 

"  Why,  I  must  begin  with  something." 

"  Come  along  up  stairs." 

And  the  enthusiastic  director  collared  his  prize,  and  was 
soon  deep  in  explaining  his  mysteries  of  a  libretto  entitled 
"  The  Devil  on  Two  Sticks."  Haydn  must  write  music  for 
it  according  to  Curtz's  directions.  It  was  no  easy  task; 
the  music  was  to  represent  all  sorts  of  things — catastro- 
phes, fiascos,  tempests.  The  tempest  brought  Haydn  to  his 
wits'  end,  for  neither  he  nor  Curtz  had  ever  witnessed  a 
sea-storm. 

Haydn  sat  at  the  piano  banging  away  in  despair:  be- 
hind him  stood  the  director  fuming,  and  raving,  and  ex- 
plaining what  he  did  not  understand  to  Haydn,  who  did 
not  understand  him.  At  last,  in  a  state  of  distraction,  the 
pianist,  opening  wide  his  arms  and  raising  them  aloft, 
brought  down  his  fists  simultaneously  on  the  two  extrem- 
ities of  the  key-board,  and  then  drawing  them  rapidly  to- 
gether till  they  met,  made  a  clean  sweep  of  all  the  notes. 

"  Bravo  !  bravo  !  that's  it — that's  the  tempest !"  cried 
Curtz;  and,  jumping  wildly  about,  he  finally  threw  his 
arms  round  the  magician  who  had  called  the  spirits  from 
the  vasty  deep,  and  afterward  paid  him  one  hundred  and 
thirty  florins  for  the  music — storm  at  sea  included. 


21ft  HATDN. 

In  1759,  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  Haydn  composed  his 
94  first  symphony,  and  thus  struck  the  second  key- 
Symphonies.  note  of  his  originality.  To  have  fixed  the  form 
of  the  quartet  and  the  symphony  was  to  lay  deep  the  foun- 
dations of  all  future  cabinet  and  orchestral  music.  Of  the 
one  hundred  and  eighteen  symphonies  comparatively  few 
are  now  played,  but  probably  we  have  all  heard  the  best. 
The  twelve  composed  for  Salomon  in  the  haste  of  creative 
power,  but  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  genius,  are  constant- 
ly heard  side  by  side  with  the  amazing  efforts  of  Mozart 
and  Beethoven  in  the  same  department,  and  do  not  suffer 
by  the  comparison  because  they  are  related  to  them,  as  the 
sweet  and  simple  forms  of  early  Gothic  are  to  the  gorgeous 
flamboyant  creations  of  a  later  period. 

Haydn's  last  symphonies  stand  related  to  his  earlier  ones 
as  the  last  quartets  to  the  earlier.  In  both  at  first  the  form 
is  struck,  but  the  work  is  stiff  and  formal ;  latterly  the  out- 
line is  the  same,  but  it  is  filled  in  with  perfect  grace  and 
freedom.  There  is  Mozart's  easy  fertility  of  thought,  but 
not  Mozart's  luxurious  imagination ;  there  is  Beethoven's 
power  of  laying  hold  of  his  subject — indeed,  Haydn's  grip 
is  .quite  masterful  in  the  allegros,  and  the  expression  of  his 
slow  movements  is  at  all  times  clear  and  delicious — but 
the  heights  and  the  depths,  together  with  the  obscurities 
of  the  later  master,  are  absent.  Ravished  at  all  times  with 
what  was  beautiful,  sublime,  or  pathetic  in  others,  he  him- 
self lived  in  a  work-a-day  world  —  a  world  of  common 
smiles  and  tears ;  a  world  of  beautiful  women  and  gifted 
men ;  of  woods,  and  mountains,  and  rivers ;  of  fishing  and 
hunting ;  of  genial  acclamation,  and  generous  endeavor, 
simple  devotion,  and  constant,  joyous,  irreproachable  laboi 
and  love. 


PRINCE  ESTERHAZY.  217 

Soon  after  his  first  symphony  he  had  the  good  fortune 
95.        to  attract  the  attention  of  a  man  whose  family 

Prince  Es-  ,  ,       .  ,          J 

terhazy.  has  since  become  intimately  associated  with  mu- 
sical genius  in  Germany :  this  was  old  Prince  Esterhazy. 

"  What !  you  don't  mean  to  say  that  little  blackamoor" 
(alluding  to  Haydn's  brown  complexion  and  small  stature) 
"  composed  that  symphony  ?" 

"  Surely,  prince  !"  replied  the  director  Friedburg,  beck- 
oning to  Joseph  Haydn,  who  advanced  toward  the  orches- 
tra. 

"  Little  Moor,"  says  the  old  gentleman, "  you  shall  enter 
my  service.  I  am  Prince  Esterhazy.  What's  your  name  ?" 

"Haydn." 

"  Ah  !  I've  heard  of  you.  Get  along,  and  dress  yourself 
like  a  Capellmeister.  Clap  on  a  new  coat,  and  mind  your 
wig  is  curled.  You're  too  short ;  you  shall  have  red  heels ; 
but  they  shall  be  high,  that  your  stature  may  correspond 
with  your  merit." 

We  may  not  approve  of  the  old  prince's  tone,  but  in 
those  days  musicians  were  not  the  confidential  advisers  of 
kings,  like  Herr  Wagner ;  rich  bankers'  sons,  like  Meyer- 
beer ;  private  gentlemen,  like  Mendelssohn ;  and  members 
of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  like  Verdi ;  but  only  "  poor  dev- 
ils," like  Haydn.  Let  these  things  be  well  weighed,  and 
let  England  remember  that  as  she  has  had  to  follow  Ger- 
many in  philosophy  and  theology,  so  must  she  sooner  or 
later  in  her  estimation  of  the  musical  profession. 

Haydn  now  went  to  live  at  Eisenstadt,  in  the  Esterhazy 
96.  household,  and  received  a  salary  of  400  florins. 
Wife.  The  old  prince  died  a  year  afterward,  and  Haydn 
continued  in  the  service  of  his  successor,  Nicolas  Esterha- 
zy, at  an  increased  salary  of  700  florins,  which  was  after- 
ward raised  to  1000  florins  per  annum.  Nothing  more  un- 


218  HAYDN. 

interesting  than  the  dull  routine  of  a  small  German  court, 
and  nothing  less  eventful  than  the  life  of  Haydn  between 
1760  and  1790,  can  be  imagined.  He  continued  the  close 
friend  and  companion  of  Prince  Nicolas,  and  death  alone 
was  able  to  dissolve,  after  a  commerce  of  thirty  years,  the 
fair  bond  between  him  and  his  Maecenas.  Every  morning 
a  new  composition  was  laid  upon  the  prince's  breakfast 
table,  generally  something  for  his  favorite  instrument,  the 
baryton,  a  kind  of  violoncello.  One  hundred  and  fifty  of 
these  pieces,  we  believe,  are  extant.  His  work  was  regular 
and  uninterrupted,  his  recreations  were  calm  and  healthful, 
occasional  journeys  to  Vienna,  months  and  months  passed 
at  the  prince's  country  seat,  mountain  rambles,  hunting, 
fishing,  open-air  concerts,  musical  evenings,  and  friendly  in- 
tercourse, and  Haydn  lived  contented,  laborious,  and  per- 
fectly unambitious. 

There  was  but  one  cloud  in  his  sky — that  was  his  wife. 
The  promise  made  to  the  hair-dresser's  daughter  in  a  rash 
moment  was  fulfilled  in  what  some  may  think  a  moment 
still  more  rash.  Haydn  could  have  been  happy  with  most 
women,  but  there  are  limits  to  the  endurance  of  a  man, 
however  amiable ;  and  Haydn  found  those  limits  exceeded 
in  the  person  of  Anne  Keller.  His  temperament  was  easy 
and  cheerful ;  hers  difficult  and  dismal.  His  religion  turned 
on  the  love  of  God;  hers  on  the  fear  of  the  devil.  Her  de- 
votion was  excessive,  but  her  piety  small ;  and  she  passed 
easily  from  mass  to  mischief-making,  or  from  beads  to 
broils.  We  are  told  that  the  tongue  is  a  little  fire,  but  it 
proved  too  hot  for  Haydn.  He  found  that  the  incessant 
nagging  of  a  quarrelsome  partner  was  ruining  his  life-work, 
and  the  world  has  probably  long  pardoned  him  for  refus- 
ing to  sacrifice  his  time  and  genius  to  the  caprices  of  a 
silly  and  ill-tempered  woman.  He  did  what  was  probably 
best  for  both.  He  gave  her  a  fair  trial,  and  then  separated 


MOZART.  219 

himself  from  her,  making  her  a  liberal  allowance,  and  thus 
permitting  her  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labor  without  de- 
stroying his  peace  of  mind  or  robbing  the  world  of  his 
genius. 

In  the  retirement  of  the  prince's  family,  between  1760 
and  1790,  an  incredible  number,  and  among  them  some  of 
his  most  famous  works,  were  produced.  We  may  note  sev- 
eral of  the  later  quartets,  six  symphonies  written  for  Paris, 
and  the  famous  last  seven  works  written  for  Cadiz. 

The  labor  of  thirty  years  had  not  been  thrown  away. 

97  Haydn  appears  to  have  been  very  unconscious  of 
Mozart  tke  jmmense  reputation  which  he  had  been  acquir- 
ing all  through  France,  Spain,  and  England,  and  was  prob- 
ably never  more  astonished  in  his  life  when  a  stranger 
burst  into  his  room,  only  a  few  days  after  the  death  of  his 
beloved  patron,  Prince  Nicolas,  and  said  abruptly,  "  I  am 
Salomon  from  London,  and  am  come  to  carry  you  off  with 
me ;  we  will  strike  a  bargain  to-morrow."  There  was  no 
bond  now  sufficiently  strong  to  keep  him  in  Germany.  He 
was  getting  on  in  life,  although  still  hale  and  hearty ;  and 
now,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  he  prepared  to  cross  the  sea  on 
that  journey  to  London  so  famous  in  the  annals  of  music. 
Yet  were  there  dear  friends  to  part  from.  Dr.  Leopold  von 
Genzinger,  the  prince's  physician ;  and  the  charming  Frau 
Von  Genzinger,  to  whom  so  many  of  his  letters  are  ad- 
dressed, who  made  him  such  good  tea  and  coffee,  and  sent 
him  such  excellent  cream.  Then  there  were  Dittersdorf 
and  Albrechtsberger ;  and,  lastly,  Mozart.  These  would 
fain  have  kept  him.  "  Ob,  papa !"  said  Mozart,  who  had  al- 
ready traveled  so  much  and  knew  every  thing, "  you  have 
had  no  education  for  the  wide,  wide  world,  and  you  speak 
too  few  languages."  "  Oh,  my  language,"  replied  the  papa, 
with  a  smile, "  is  understood  all  over  the  world." 


220  HAYDN. 

December  15, 1790,  was  the  day  fixed  for  his  departure. 
Mozart  could  not  tear  himself  away,  nor  was  he  able  to  re- 
press the  tears  that  rose  as  he  said  in  words  so  sadly  pro- 
phetic, "We  shall  now  doubtless  take  our  last  farewell." 
They  dined  together  indeed  for  the  last  time.  Both  were 
deeply  affected,  but  neither  could  have  dreamed  how  very 
soon  one  of  them,  and  that  the  youngest,  was  to  be  taken 
away.  A  year  after  we  read  in  Haydn's  diary, "  Mozart 
died  December  5, 1791."  Nothing  could  exceed  Haydn's 
admiration  for  Mozart.  In  1785  Mozart  wrote  the  six  cel- 
ebrated quartets  dedicated  to  Haydn.  "  I  declare  to  you," 
said  the  old  composer  to  Mozart's  father,  "before  God,  that 
your  son  is  the  greatest  composer  who  ever  lived."  In 
1787  he  thus  writes: 

"I  only  wish  I  could  impress  upon  every  friend  of  music,  and  on  great 
men  in  particular,  the  same  deep  musical  sympathy  and  profound  appre- 
ciation which  I  myself  feel  for  Mozart's  inimitable  music  ;  then  nations 
would  vie  with  each  other  to  possess  such  a  jewel  within  their  frontiers. 
It  enrages  me  to  think  that  the  unparalleled  Mozart  is  not  yet  engaged  at 
any  imperial  court !  Forgive  my  excitement ;  I  love  the  man  so  dearly." 

His  wife  must  needs  write  to  worry  him  in  England  by 
saying  that  Mozart  had  taken  to  running  him  down.  "  I 
can  not  believe  it,"  cried  Haydn ;  "  if  true,  I  will  forgive 
him."  As  late  as  1807,  the  conversation  turning  one  day 
on  Mozart,  Haydn  burst  into  tears ;  but,  recovering  him- 
self, "  Forgive  me,"  he  said ;  "  I  must  ever,  ever  weep  at 
the  name  of  my  Mozart." 

On  his  way  to  England  Haydn  was  introduced  to  Beet- 
le,      hoven,  then  twenty.     Beethoven  actually  had  a 

Haydn  in  •  «  .  -, 

England,  lesson  or  two  from  him,  and  Haydn  was  exceed- 
ingly anxious  to  claim  him  as  a  pupil  Beethoven,  upon 
hearing  this  many  years  afterward,  said  characteristically 
and  no  doubt  truly, "  Certainly  I  had  a  lesson  from  Haydn 


HA  TON  IN  ENGLAND.  221 

but  I  was  not  his  disciple ;  I  never  learned  any  thing  from 
him." 

"  By  four  o'clock  we  had  come  twenty-two  miles.  The 
large  vessel  stood  out  to  sea  five  hours  longer,  till  the  tide 
carried  it  into  the  harbor.  I  remained  on  deck  during  the 
whole  passage,  in  order  to  gaze  my  fill  at  that  huge  mon- 
ster, the  ocean."  Haydn  was  soon  safely,  but,  according  to 
his  moderate  German  notions,  expensively  housed  at  18 
Great  Pulteney  Street,  London.  He  was  to  give  twenty 
concerts  in  the  year,  and  receive  £50  for  each.  The  novelty 
of  the  concerts  was  to  consist  in  the  new  symphonies  which 
Haydn  was  to  conduct  in  person,  seated  at  the  piano.  His 
fame  had  long  preceded  him,  and  his  reception  every  where 
delighted  him.  "  I  could  dine  out  every  day  of  the  week," 
he  writes.  At  concerts  and  public  meetings  his  arrival 
was  the  sign  for  enthusiastic  applause ;  and  how,  in  the 
midst  of  Lord  Mayors'  feasts,  royal  visits,  and  general  star- 
ring, he  managed  to  have  composed  and  produced  the  Sa- 
lomon Symphonies  and  countless  other  works  written  in 
London,  is  a  question  we  can  not  attempt  to  solve. 

But  Haydn  was  hundred-handed,  and  had,  moreover, 
eyes  and  ears  for  every  thing.  He  tells  us  how  he  enjoy- 
ed himself  at  the  civic  feast  in  company  with  William  Pitt, 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  the  Duke  of  Lids  (Leeds).  He 
says,  after  dinner,  the  highest  nobility — i.  e.,  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  his  wife  (!) — were  seated  on  a  throne.  In  an- 
other room  the  gentlemen,  as  usual,  drank  freely  the  whole 
night ;  and  the  songs,  and  the  crazy  uproar,  and  smashing 
of  glasses,  were  very  great.  The  oil-lamps  smelt  terribly, 
and  the  dinner  cost  £6000.  He  went  down  to  stay  with 
the  Prince  of  Wales  (George  IV.),  and  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
painted  his  portrait.  The  prince  played  the  violoncello 
not  badly,  and  charmed  Haydn  by  his  affability.  "He  is 
the  handsomest  man  on  God's  earth.  He  has  an  extraor 


222  HAYDN. 

dinary  love  for  music,  and  a  great  deal  of  feeling,  but  very 
little  money."  From  the  palace  he  passed  to  the  laboratory, 
and  was  introduced  to  Herschel,  in  whom  he  was  delighted 
to  find  an  old  oboe  player.  The  big  telescope  astonished 
him,  so  did  the  astronomer.  "He  often  sits  out  of  doors  in 
the  most  intense  cold  for  five  or  six  hours  at  a  time." 

From  these  and  other  dissipations  Haydn  had  constant- 
ly to  hasten  back  to  direct  his  concerts  at  the  Hanover 
Square  Rooms,  and  before  he  left  England  he  produced  at 
the  Haymarket  the  first  six  symphonies  of  the  twelve  com- 
posed for  Salomon.  The  public  was  enthusiastic ;  but  so 
much  orchestral  music  was  both  a  novelty  and  a  trial ;  it 
is  even  possible  that  people  may  have  gone  to  sleep  in  the 
middle  of  some  of  the  adagios.  The  well-known  "  Surprise 
Symphony"  is,  in  that  case,  Haydn's  answer  to  such  culpa- 
ble inattention.  The  slow  movement,  it  will  be  remember- 
ed, begins  in  the  most  piano  and  unobtrusive  manner,  and 
by  about  the  time  the  audience  should  be  nodding,  a  sud- 
den explosive  fortissimo,  as  Haydn  remarked, "  makes  the 
ladies  jump  !"  In  amateur  orchestras  it  is  not  unusual  for 
some  enthusiast  to  let  off"  a  pistol  behind  the  stage  to  give 
tone  to  the  big  drum,  but  it  has  been  generally  thought 
unnecessary  to  paint  the  lily  in  this  manner. 

The  evenings  at  the  Haymarket  were  triumphs  that  it 
was  not  easy  to  rival.  In  the  public  prints  we  read : 

"It  is  truly  wonderful  what  sublime  and  august  thoughts  this  master 
weaves  into  his  works.  Passages  often  occur  which  it  is  impossible  to 
listen  to  without  becoming  excited — we  are  carried  away  by  admiration, 
and  are  forced  to  applaud  with  hand  and  mouth.  The  Frenchmen  here 
can  not  restrain  their  transports  in  soft  adagios ;  they  will  clap  their  hands 
in  loud  applause,  and  thus  mar  the  effect." 

To  stem  this  tide  of  popularity  the  Italian  faction  had 
recourse  to  Giardini ;  and  to  beat  the  German  on  his  own 
ground,  his  own  pupil,  Pleyel,  was  got  over  to  conduct 


THE  CREATION  AND  THE  SEASONS.  223 

rival  concerts.  At  first  Haydn  writes, "  He  behaves  him- 
self with  great  modesty ;"  but  later  we  read, "  Pleyel's  pre- 
sumption is  every  where  criticised;"  yet  he  adds, "I go  to 
all  his  concerts  and  applaud  him,  for  I  love  him." 

Very  different  were  the  social  amenities  which  passed 
between  Papa  Haydn  and  the  Italian  Giardini.  "  I  won't 
know  the  German  hound  !"  cries  the  excited  Italian.  "  I  at- 
tended his  concert  at  Ranelagh,"  says  Haydn ;  "  he  played 
the  fiddle  like  a  hog  !" 

In  a  year  and  a  half  (July,  1792)  Haydn  was  back  at  Vi- 
enna, conducting  his  new  symphonies,  which  had  not  yet 
been  heard  in  Germany.  In  1794  he  returned  to  the  large 
circle  of  his  friends  in  England,  and  in  the  course  of  anoth- 
er year  and  a  half  produced  the  remaining  six  symphonies 
promised  to  Salomon.  In  May,  1795,  Haydn  took  his  bene- 
fit at  the  Haymarket.  He  directed  the  whole  of  his  twelve 
symphonies,  and  pocketing  12,000  florins,  returned  to  Ger- 
many, August  15, 1795. 

The  eighteenth  century  was  closing  in,  dark  with  storms, 
99          and  the  wave  of  revolution  had  burst  in  all  its 
and  theesea-n  ^Ur7  over  France,  casting  its  bloody  spray  upon 
8onB-  the  surrounding  nations.     From  his  little  cot- 

tage near  Vienna  Haydn  watched  the  course  of  events. 
Like  many  other  princes  of  art,  he  was  no  politician,  but 
his  affection  for  his  country  lay  deep,  and  his  loyalty  to  the 
Emperor  Francis  was  warm ;  the  hymn,  "  God  save  the 
Emperor,"  so  exquisitely  treated  in  the  seventy-seventh 
quartet,  remained  his  favorite  melody ;  it  seemed  to  have 
acquired  a  certain  sacredness  in  his  eyes  in  an  age  when 
kings  were  beheaded  and  their  crowns  tossed  to  a  rabble. 
But  his  own  world,  the  world  of  art,  remained  untouched 
by  political  convulsions.  In  1795  he  commenced,  and  in 
1798  he  finished  the  cantata  or  oratorio  called  the  Creation. 


224  HAYDN. 

It  very  soon  went  the  round  of  Germany,  and  passed  to 
England ;  and  it  was  the  Creation  that  the  First  Consul 
was  hastening  to  hear  at  the  Opera  on  the  memorable  24th 
of  January,  1801,  when  he  was  stopped  by  an  attempt  at 
assassination. 

In  1800  Haydn  had  finished  another  great  work, "The 
Seasons,"  founded  on  Thomson's  poem.  In  1802  his  two 
last  quartets  appeared.  A  third  he  was  forced  to  leave  un- 
finished; in  it  he  introduced  a  phrase  which  latterly  he 
was  fond  of  writing  on  his  visiting  card : 

"  Hin  ist  alle  meine  Kraft, 
Alt  und  schwach  bin  ich !" 

He  was  now  seventy  years  old,  and  seldom  left  his  room. 
On  summer  days  he  would  linger  in  the  garden.  Friends 
came  to  see  him,  and  found  him  often  in  a  profound  melan- 
choly. He  tells  us,  however,  that  God  frequently  revived 
his  courage ;  indeed,  his  whole  life  is  marked  by  a  touch- 
ing and  simple  faith,  which  did  not  forsake  him  in  his  old 
age.  He  considered  his  art  a  religious  thing,  and  constant- 
ly wrote  at  the  beginning  of  his  works,  "  In  nomine  Dom- 
ini," or  "  Soli  Deo  gloria  ;"  and  at  the  end, "  Laus  Deo." 

In  1 809  Vienna  was  bombarded  by  the  French.  A  round- 
shot  fell  into  his  garden.  He  seemed  to  be  in  no  alarm, but 
on  May  25  he  requested  to  be  led  to  his  piano,  and  three 
times  over  he  played  the  "  Hymn  to  the  Emperor"  with  an 
emotion  that  fairly  overcame  both  himself  and  those  who 
heard  him.  He  was  to  play  no  more ;  and  being  helped 
back  to  his  couch,  he  lay  down  in  extreme  exhaustion  to 
wait  for  the  end.  Five  days  afterward,  May  26, 1 809,  died 
Francis  Joseph  Haydn,  aged  seventy-seven.  He  lies  buried 
in  the  cemetery  of  Guinpfendorf,  Vienna. 

The  number  of  Haydn's  compositions  is  nearly  estimated 
at  eight  hundred,  comprising  cantatas,  symphonies,  orato- 


CHARACTERISTICS.  225 

100.       rios,  masses,  concertos,  trios,  quartets,  sonatas,  min- 

Character-  '. 

ietics.  ucts,  etc. ;  twenty-two  operas,  of  which  eight  are 
German,  and  fourteen  Italian.  But  the  great  father  of 
symphony  is  not  to  be  judged  by  his  operas  any  more  than 
the  great  father  of  oratorio. 

The  world  has  often  been  tantalized  by  the  spectacle  of 
genius  without  industry,  or  industry  without  genius,  but  in 
Haydn  genius  and  industry  were  happily  married. 

"Ego  nee  studium  sine  divite  vena 
Nee  rude  quid  possit  video  ingenium." 

In  early  years  he  worked  sixteen,  and  sometimes  eighteen 
hours  a  day,  and  latterly  never  less  than  five ;  and  the  work 
was  not  desultory,  but  very  direct.  No  man  had  a  clearer 
notion  of  what  he  meant  to  do,  and  no  man  carried  out  his 
programme  more  rigidly.  He  was  equal  to  Schubert  in 
the  rich  flow  of  his  musical  ideas,  but  superior  to  him  in 
arrangement  and  selection.  He  could  be  grave  and  play- 
ful ;  serious,  and  sometimes  sublime,  but  seldom  romantic. 
In  him  there  is  nothing  artificial,  nothing  abnormal ;  his 
tenderness  is  all  real,  and  his  gayety  quite  natural ;  nor  is 
the  balance  of  symmetry  any  where  sacrificed  to  passion  or 
to  power.  The  abundance  of  his  ideas  never  tempted  him 
to  neglect  the  fit  elaboration  of  any.  He  applied  himself 
without  distraction  to  his  thought  until  it  became  clear  to 
himself.  He  would  often  compose,  and  then  recompose  on 
a  given  theme,  until  the  perfect  expression  had  been  found. 
We  remember,  some  years  ago,  one  of  the  finest  classical 
scholars  at  Cambridge,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  making 
miserable  work  of  his  Greek-construing  during  class-time. 
Few  of  his  pupils  could  understand  what  he  was  about;  to 
the  inexperienced  freshman  it  sounded  like  the  bungling  of 
a  school-boy.  The  sentence  was  rendered  over  and  over 
again,  and  at  the  close  probably  not  a  word  retained  its 
original  position.  While  the  novices  scribbled  and  scratch- 


226  HAYDN. 

ed  out,  the  older  hands  waited  calmly  for  the  last  perfect 
form.  The  process  was  fatiguing,  but  amply  repaid  the 
toil.  Poets  have  been  known  to  spend  days  over  a  line 
which  may  afterward  have  been  destined  to  sparkle  forever 

"  On  the  stretched  forefinger  of  all  time." 

Like  good  construing  or  good  poetry,  good  music  demands 
the  most  unremitting  toil.  No  doubt  the  artist  attains  at 
length  a  certain  direct  and  accurate  power  of  expression. 
We  know  that  many  of  Turner's  pictures  were  dashed  off 
without  an  after-touch.  While  Macaulay's  manuscripts  are 
almost  illegibly  interlined  and  corrected,  many  of  Walter 
Scott's  novels  are  written  almost  without  an  erasure ;  but 
such  facility  combined  with  accuracy  is,  after  all,  only  the 
work  of  a  mind  rendered  both  facile  and  accurate  by  long 
practice. 

Haydn  is  valuable  in  the  history  of  art,  not  only  as  a 
brilliant,  but  also  as  a  complete  artist.  Perhaps,  with  the 
exception  of  Goethe  and  Wordsworth,  there  is  no  equally 
remarkable  instance  of  a  man  who  was  so  permitted  to  work 
out  all  that  was  in  him.  His  life  was  a  rounded  whole. 
There  was  no  broken  light  about  it ;  it  orbed  slowly  with 
a  mild,  unclouded  lustre  into  a  perfect  star.  Time  was 
gentle  with  him,  and  Death  was  kind,  for  both  waited  upon 
his  genius  until  all  was  won.  Mozart  was  taken  away  at  an 
age  when  new  and  dazzling  effects  had  not  ceased  to  flash 
through  his  brain :  at  the  very  moment  when  his  harmonies 
began  to  have  a  prophetic  ring  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
it  was  decreed  that  he  should  not  see  its  dawn.  Beethoven 
himself  had  but  just  entered  upon  an  unknown  "  sea  whose 
margin  seemed  to  fade  forever  and  forever  as  he  moved ;" 
but  good  old  Haydn  had  come  into  port  over  a  calm  sea 
and  after  a  prosperous  voyage.  The  laurel  wreath  was 
this  time  woven  about  silver  locks;  the  gathered-in  har- 
vest was  ripe  and  golden. 


SCHUBERT. 

Born  1797,  Died  1828. 


V. 

IN  passing  from  the  great  gods  of  music  to  those  other 
delightful  tone-poets  and  singers  whose  works  the  world 
will  not  willingly  let  die,  we  could  scarcely  find  any  names 
more  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  true  musician  than  those  of 
FRANZ  SCHUBERT  and  FREDERICK  CHOPIN. 


101 


Schubert,  the  prince  of  lyrists  —  Chopin,  the  most  roman- 
tic  of  piano-forte  writers  ;  Schubert  rich  with  an  in- 
exhaustible  fancy  —  Chopin  perfect  with  an  exqui- 
pm-  site  finish,  each  reaching  a  supreme  excellence  in 
his  own  department,  while  one  narrowly  escaped  being 
greatest  in  all  —  both  occupied  intensely  with  their  own 


228  SCHUBERT. 

meditations,  and  admitting  into  them  but  little  of  the  out- 
er world — both  too  indifferent  to  the  public  taste  to  become 
immediately  popular,  but  too  remarkable  to  remain  long  un- 
known— both  exhibiting  in  their  lives  and  in  their  music 
striking  resemblances  and  still  more  forcible  contrasts — 
both  now  so  widely  admired  and  beloved  in  this  country 
— so  advanced  and  novel,  that  although  Schubert  has  been 
in  his  grave  for  thirty-eight  years  and  Chopin  for  seventeen, 
yet  to  us  they  seem  to  have  died  but  yesterday — these  men, 
partners  in  the  common  sufferings  of  genius,  and  together 
crowned  with  immortality  in  death,  may  well  claim  from 
us  again  and  again  the  tribute  of  memory  to  their  lives, 
and  of  homage  to  their  inspiration. 

In  the  parish  of  Lichtenthal,  Vienna,  the  inhabitants  are 
102.       fond  of  pointing  out  a  house  commonly  known  by 

Precocious  °  J 

Talent  the  sign  of  the  "  Red  Crab,"  which,  in  addition  to 
that  intelligent  and  interesting  symbol,  bears  the  decora- 
tion of  a  small  gray  marble  tablet,  with  the  inscription 
"  Franz  Schubert's  Geburtshaus."  On  the  right  hand  is  a 
sculptured  lyre,  on  the  left  a  wreath,  with  the  date  of  the 
composer's  birth,  January  31, 1797. 

Franz  Schubert  was  the  youngest  son  of  Franz  and  Eliz- 
abeth Schubert ;  he  had  eighteen  brothers  and  sisters,  few 
of  whom  lived  very  long.  His  father  was  a  poor  school- 
master, who,  having  little  else  to  bestow  upon  his  children, 
took  care  to  give  them  a  good  education.  "When  he  was 
five  years  old,"  his  father  writes,  "  I  prepared  him  for  ele- 
mentary instruction,  and  at  six  I  sent  him  to  school ;  he 
was  always  one  of  the  first  among  his  fellow-students."  As 
in  the  case  of  Mozart  and  Mendelssohn,  the  ruling  passion 
was  early  manifested,  and  nature  seemed  to  feel  that  a  ca- 
reer so  soon  to  be  closed  by  untimely  death  must  be  begun 
with  the  tottering  steps  and  early  lisp  of  childhood.  From 


PRECOCIOUS  TALENT.  229 

the  first,  Schubert  entered  upon  music  as  a  prince  entera 
upon  his  own  dominions.  What  others  toiled  for  he  won 
almost  without  an  effort.  Melody  flowed  from  him  like 
perfume  from  a  rose ;  harmony  was  the  native  atmosphere 
he  breathed.  Like  Handel  and  Beethoven,  he  retained  no 
master  for  long,  and  soon  learned  to  do  without  the  assist- 
ance of  any.  His  father  began  to  teach  him  music,  but 
found  that  he  had  somehow  mastered  the  rudiments  for 
himself.  Holzer,  the  Lichtenthal  choir-master,  took  him  in 
hand,  but  observed  that "  whenever  he  wanted  to  teach  him 
any  thing,  he  knew  it  already ;"  and  some  years  afterward 
Salieri,*  who  considered  himself  superior  to  Mozart,  admit- 
ted that  his  pupil  Schubert  was  a  born  genius,  and  could 
do  whatever  he  chose.  At  the  age  of  eleven  Schubert  was 
a  good  singer,  and  also  an  accomplished  violinist ;  the  com- 
posing mania  soon  afterward  set  in,  and  at  thirteen  his  con- 
sumption of  music-paper  was  something  enormous.  Over- 
tures, symphonies,  quartets,  and  vocal  pieces  were  always 
forthcoming,  and  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  being  perform- 
ed every  evening  at  the  concerts  of  the  "  Convict"f  school, 
where  he  was  now  being  educated — Schubert  regarding 
this  as  by  far  the  most  important  part  of  the  day's  work. 
At  times  music  had  to  be  pursued  under  difficulties ;  Ada- 
gios had  to  be  written  between  the  pauses  of  grammar  and 
mathematics,  and  Prestos  finished  off  when  the  master's 
back  was  turned.  Movements  had  to  be  practiced,  under 
some  discouragements,  during  the  hours  of  relaxation.  "  On 
one  occasion,"  writes  a  friend, "  I  represented  the  audience : 
there  was  no  fire,  and  the  room  was  frightfully  cold !"  At 
the  age  of  eleven  he  had  been  admitted  as  chorister  into 

*  Salieri,  born  1750,  died  1825,  now  chiefly  remembered  as  the  person 
to  whom  Beethoven  dedicated  three  sonatas. 

t  A  sort  of  free  grammar-school,  where  poor  students  were  boarded  gra- 
tuitously. 


230  SCHUBERT. 

the  Imperial  choir,  then  under  the  direction  of  Salieri,  where 
he  remained  until  1813,  when  his  voice  broke.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Salieri,  the  avowed  rival  of  Mozart,  and 
as  narrow  and  jealous  a  man  as  ever  lived,  was  very  fond 
of  Schubert,  and  exercised  an  important  influence  over  his 
studies,  and  yet  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  of  two 
minds  musically  less  congenial.  Salieri  was  devoted  to 
Italian  tradition,  and  was  never  even  familiar  with  the  Ger- 
man language,  although  he  had  lived  in  Germany  for  fifty 
years.  Schubert  was  the  apostle  of  German  romanticism, 
and  almost  the  founder  of  the  German  ballad,  as  distinct 
from  the  French  and  Italian  Romance.  Schubert  thought 
Beethoven  a  great  composer — Salieri  considered  him  a 
very  much  overrated  man;  Schubert  worshiped  Mozart, 
Salieri  did  not  appreciate  him.  It  was  evident  that  per- 
sons holding  such  dissimilar  views  would  not  long  remain 
in  the  relation  of  master  and  pupil,  and  one  day,  after  a 
bitter  dispute  over  a  Mass  of  Schubert's,  out  of  which  Sa- 
lieri had  struck  all  the  passages  which  savored  of  Haydn 
or  Mozart,  the  recalcitrant  pupil  refused  to  have  any  thing 
more  to  do  with  such  a  man  as  a  teacher.  It  is  pleasing, 
however,  to  find  that  this  difference  of  opinion  was  not  fol- 
lowed by  any  personal  estrangement ;  and  while  Schubert 
always  remained  grateful  to  Salieri,  Salieri  watched  with 
affectionate  interest  the  rapid  progress  of  his  favorite  pupil. 

The  boyish  life  of  Schubert  was  not  marked  by  any  pe- 
103.       culiarities  apart  from  his  devotion  to  music.    He 

Early  Com-  . 

position*,  was  light-hearted,  disposed  to  make  the  best  of 
his  scanty  income,  a  dutiful  and  obedient  son,  fond  of  so- 
ciety, and  of  all  kinds  of  amusement.  We  find  nothing  to 
account  for  the  lugubrious  titles  which  belong  to  so  many 
of  his  early  works,  and  which  seem  to  fall  across  the  spring- 
time of  his  life  like  the  prophetic  shadows  of  coming  sor- 


EARL  T  COMPOSITIONS.  231 

row  and  disappointment.  Between  the  ages  of  eleven  and 
sixteen  his  compositions  were  "A  Complaint,"  "Hagar's 
Lament,"  "  The  Parricide,"  and  "A  Corpse  Fantasia !"  He 
left  the  "  Convict  Academy"  in  his  seventeenth  year  (1813), 
and,  returning  to  his  father's  house,  engaged  himself  vigor- 
ously in  the  tuition  of  little  boys.  The  next  three  years 
were  passed  in  this  delightful  occupation,  but  the  continu- 
ous stream  of  his  music  never  ceased,  and  1815  is  marked 
as  the  most  prolific  year  of  his  life.  It  witnessed  the  pro- 
duction of  more  than  a  hundred  songs,  half  a  dozen  operas 
and  operettas,  several  symphonic  pieces,  church  music, 
chamber  music,  etc.,  etc.  It  is  remarkable  that  at  this  ear- 
ly period  he  wrote  some  of  his  finest  songs ;  and  that,  while 
many  of  his  larger  works  at  that  time,  and  for  some  years 
afterward,  continued  to  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  Mo- 
zart, some  of  these  ballads  are  like  no  one  but  himself  at 
his  very  best.  Such  are  the  "Mignon  Songs,"  1815,  and 
the  "Songs  from  Ossian." 

Early  in  1816  Schubert  produced  the  most  popular  of 
all  his  works, "The  Erl  King."  It  was  composed,  charac- 
teristically enough,  in  the  true  Schubertian  fashion.  One 
afternoon  Schubert  was  alone  in  the  little  room  allotted 
to  him  in  his  father's  house,  and  happening  to  take  up  a 
volume  of  Goethe's  poems,  he  read  the  "  Erl  King."  The 
rushing  sound  of  the  wind  and  the  terrors  of  the  enchant- 
ed forest  were  instantly  changed  for  him  into  realities. 
Every  line  of  the  poem  seemed  to  flow  into  strange  un- 
earthly music  as  he  read,  and  seizing  a  pen,  he  dashed 
down  the  song  nearly  as  it  is,  in  just  the  time  necessary 
for  the  mechanical  writing. 

The  song  so  hastily  composed  was  destined  to  have  a 
remarkable  future.  It  was  sung  some  years  after  by  Vogl 
at  Vienna,  and  produced  a  great  sensation.  The  timid 
publishers  who  had  hitherto  declined  to  publish  Schubert's 


232  SCHUBERT. 

compositions  now  began  to  think  him  a  young  man  of 
some  talent,  and  Diabelli  was  induced  to  engrave  and  sell 
the  song.  Schubert  got  little  enough,  but  in  a  few  months 
the  publishers  made  over  £80  by  it,  and  have  since  real- 
ized thousands.  A  few  hours  before  his  death,  and  when 
he  was  quite  blind,  Jean  Paul  desired  to  have  it  sung  to 
him.  Two  years  before  Goethe's  death  (1830),  and  two 
years  after  Schubert's,  Madame  Schroder  Devrient  was 
passing  through  Weimar,  and  sang  some  songs  to  the 
aged  poet;  among  them  was  the  "Erl  King."  Goethe 
was  deeply  affected,  and,  taking  Schroder's  head  between 
both  his  hands,  he  kissed  her  forehead,  and  added,  "A 
thousand  thanks  for  this  grand  artistic  performance :  I 
heard  the  composition  once  before,  and  it  did  not  please 
me ;  but  when  it  is  given  like  this,  the  whole  becomes  a 
living  picture  !"  The  startling  effect  produced  by  Madame 
Viardot  in  this  song  may  still  be  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
some  of  our  readers. 

In  1816  Schubert  applied  for  a  small  musical  appoint- 
ment at  Laibach  under  government.  The  salary  was  only 
£20  a  year ;  but,  although  now  a  rising  young  man,  and 
highly  recommended  by  Salieri,  he  proved  unsuccessful. 
However,  he  was  not  destined  to  struggle  much  longer 
with  the  trials  of  the  pedagogue's  vocation,  and  soon  aft- 
erward he  consented  to  take  up  his  abode  in  the  house  of 
his  friend  Schober.  Schubert  soon  gathered  about  him  a 
small  but  congenial  circle  of  friends,  and  from  the  very 
scanty  biographical  materials  before  us  we  are  able  to 
catch  some  glimpses  of  them, 

SCHOBER  was  several  years  his  friend's  senior,  and  lived 
10^        a  quiet  bachelor  life  with  his  widowed  mother. 
HIS  Friends.  jje  wag  noj.  especiaiiy  musical  himself,  but  pas- 
sionately attached  to  art  in  all  its  forms,  and  when  unable 


SIS  FRIENDS.  233 

to  give,  was  all  the  more  ready  to  receive.  Schober  was  a 
poet,  but  his  great  merit  will  always  consist  in  having  rec- 
ognized and  assisted  Schubert  in  the  days  of  his  obscurity, 
and  the  one  poem  by  which  he  will  be  longest  remembered 
is  the  poem  inscribed  on  his  friend's  coffin,  beginning, 

"Der  Friede  sei  mit  dir,  du  engelreine  Seele!" 
"  All  bliss  be  thine,  them  pure  angelic  soul !" 

GAHY  was  a  close  friend  of  Schubert's,  especially  toward 
the  close  of  his  short  life.  He  was  a  first-rate  pianist,  and 
with  him  Schubert  studied  Beethoven's  symphonies,  ar- 
ran^ed  for  four  hands,  which  could  then  so  seldom  be 

o  * 

heard,  besides  immense  quantities  of  his  own  fantasies, 
marches,  and  endless  piano-forte  movements. 

At  once  the  most  singular  and  the  most  intimate  of 
Schubert's  friends  was  MAYRHOFER,  the  poet.  Tall  and 
slight,  with  delicate  features  and  a  little  sarcastic  smile,  he 
came  and  went,  sometimes  burning  with  generous  emotions, 
at  others  silent  and  lethargic.  He  seemed  to  be  swayed 
by  conflicting  passions,  over  which  he  had  no  control..  He 
was  constantly  writing  poetry,  which  Schubert  was  con- 
stantly setting  to  music.  But  as  time  went  on,  his  nerv- 
ous malady  developed  itself.  He  wrote  less,  and  for  hours 
gave  himself  up  to  the  dreams  of  confirmed  hypochondria. 
He  held  a  small  post  under  government.  One  morning, 
going  into  his  office  as  usual,  he  endevored  in  vain  to  fix 
his  attention.  He  soon  rose  from  his  desk,  and,  after  a  few 
turns  up  and  down  the  room,  went  up  to  the  top  of  the 
house.  A  window  on  the  landing  stood  wide  open — he 
rushed  to  it,  and  sprang  from  a  great  height  into  the  street 
below.  He  was  found  quite  unconscious,  and  expired  in  a 
few  moments. 

Schubert  could  not  have  got  on  well  without  the  broth- 
ers HtJTTEXBRENNER ;  to  the  end  of  his  life  they  fetched 


234  SCHUBERT. 

and  carried  for  him  in  the  most  exemplary  manner.  They 
puffed  him  incessantly  at  home  and  abroad ;  they  bullied 
his  publishers,  abused  his  creditors,  carried  on  much  of  his 
correspondence,  and  not  unfrequently  paid  his  debts ;  they 
were  unwearied  in  acts  of  kindness  and  devotion  to  him — 
never  frozen  by  his  occasional  moroseness — never  soured 
or  offended  by  the  brusqueness  of  his  manner.  They  have 
still  in  their  possession  many  of  his  MSS.,  every  scrap  of 
which  they  have  carefully  preserved,  with  the  exception 
of  two  of  his  early  operas,  which  the  housemaid  unluckily 
used  to  light  the  fires  with. 

The  last  and  most  important  of  this  little  coterie  was 
JOHANN  MICHAEL  VOGL,  born  in  1768.  He  was  educated 
in  a  monastery,  and  although  he  sang  for  twenty  years  in 
the  Viennese  opera,  he  never  lost  his  habits  of  meditation 
and  study,  and  might  often  be  met  with  a  volume  of  the 
New  Testament,  Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Thomas  &  Kempis  in 
his  hand.  Twenty  years  older  than  Schubert,  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  certain  breadth  and  nobleness  of  character  in 
which  his  friend  was  somewhat  deficient,  he  very  soon  ac- 
quired a  great  ascendency  over  him.  They  became  fast 
friends,  and  Vogl  was  the  first  to  introduce  Schubert  to 
the  Viennese  public.  He  could  hardly  have  been  more  for- 
tunate in  his  interpreter.  Vogl  not  only  possessed  a  re- 
markably fine  voice,  perfect  intonation,  and  true  musical 
feeling,  but  he  was  universally  respected  and  admired ;  and 
as  he  had  ample  means  of  studying  the  real  spirit  of  Schu- 
bert's songs,  so  he  had  frequent  opportunities  of  extending 
their  popularity. 


Schubert  himself  was  now  about  twenty  years  old.    His 
106.        outward  appearance  was  not  prepossessing;  he 

His  Appear- 
ance, was  short,  with  a  slight  stoop;  his  face  was  puf- 
fy, and  his  hair  grizzled ;  he  was  fleshy  without  strength, 


HIS  APPEARANCE.  235 

and  pale  without  delicacy.  These  unpleasant  characteris- 
tics did  not  improve  with  years.  They  were  partly,  no 
doubt,  constitutional,  but  confirmed  by  sedentary,  perhaps 
irregular  habits,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  his  doc- 
tors, some  years  later,  recommending  him  to  take  fresh  air 
and  exercise.  Schubert,  though  a  warm-hearted,  was  not 
always  a  genial  friend,  and  his  occasional  fits  of  depression 
would  sometimes  pass  into  sullenness  and  apathy ;  but  mu- 
sic was  a  never-failing  remedy,  and  Gahy  used  to  say  that, 
however  unsympathizing  and  cross  he  might  be,  playing  a 
duet  always  seemed  to  warm  him  up,  so  that,  toward  the 
close,  he  became  quite  a  pleasant  companion.  Htitten- 
brenner,  it  is  true,  called  him  a  tyrant  because  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  getting  snubbed  for  his  excessive  admiration. 
"  The  fellow,"  growled  out  Schubert,  "  likes  every  thing  I 
do !"  Schubert  did  not  shine  in  general  society.  He  pos- 
sessed neither  the  political  sympathies  of  Beethoven,  nor 
the  wide  culture  of  Mendelssohn  and  Schumann.  Almost 
always  the  greatest  man  present,  he  was  frequently  the 
least  noticed ;  and  while  drawing-room  plaudits  were  oft- 
en freely  lavished  upon  some  gifted  singer,  few  thought  of 
thanking  the  stout,  awkward,  and  silent  figure  who  sat  at 
the  piano  and  accompanied  the  thrilling  melodies  which 
had  sprung  from  his  own  heart.  Only  when  music  was 
the  subject  of  discussion  would  he  occasionally  speak  like 
one  who  had  a  right  to  be  heard.  At  such  times  his  face 
would  seem  to  lose  all  that  was  coarse  or  repulsive,  his 
eyes  would  sparkle  with  the  hidden  fire  of  genius,  and  his 
voice  grow  tremulous  with  emotion. 

In  1818,  Count  Esterhazy,  a  Hungarian  nobleman,  with 
loc.      his  wife  Rosine,  and  his  two  daughters  Marie  and 

Work  and  . 

Romance.  Caroline,  aged  respectively  fourteen  and  eleven, 
passed  the  winter  at  Vienna.  Schubert,  who,  as  a  rule,  re- 


236  SCHUBERT. 

fused  to  give  music-lessons,  was  induced  in  this  one  in- 
stance to  waive  his  objections,  and  entered  this  nobleman  V 
house  in  the  capacity  of  music-master.  He  found  the  whole 
family  passionately  devoted  to  the  art.  Marie  had  a  beau- 
tiful soprano  voice,  Caroline  and  her  mother  sang  contral- 
to, Baron  Schonstein  took  the  tenor,  and  the  count  com- 
pleted the  quartet  by  singing  bass.  Many  of  Schubert's 
most  beautiful  quartets  were  written  for  the  Esterhazy 
family ;  among  them,  "  The  Prayer  before  the  Battle,"  on 
the  words  of  La  Motte  Fouque,  and  numbers  of  his  songs 
(such  as  "  Abendlied,"  "  Morgengruss,"  "  Blondel  zu  Ma- 
rien,"  and  "Ungeduld")  were  inspired  by  the  charms  of 
their  society,  and  the  scenes  which  he  visited  with  them. 

At  the  close  of  the  season  the  family  thought  of  leaving 
Vienna ;  but  Schubert  had  become  necessary  to  them,  and 
they  could  not  bear  to  part  with  him,  so  he  went  back 
with  them  to  Hungary.  Count  Esterhazy's  estate  was  sit- 
uated at  the  foot  of  the  Styrian  Hills,  and  here  it  was  that 
Schubert  fell  in  love  with  the  youngest  daughter,  Caroline 
Esterhazy.  As  his  affectionate  intercourse  with  the  fam- 
ily was  never  interrupted,  we  may  suppose  that  Schubert 
kept  his  own  counsel  at  first,  and  was  never  indiscreet 
enough  to  press  his  suit.  The  little  girl  was  far  too  young 
to  be  embarrassed  by  his  attentions,  and  when  she  grew 
older,  and  may  have  begun  to  understand  the  natui'e  of 
his  sentiments,  she  was  still  so  fond  of  him  and  his  music 
that,  although  she  never  reciprocated  his  love,  there  was 
no  open  rupture  between  them.  Caroline  played  at  pla- 
tonic  affection  with  great  success,  and  afterward  married 
comfortably.  She  could,  however,  sometimes  be  a  little 
cruel,  and  once  she  reproached  her  lover  with  never  hav 
ing  dedicated  any  thing  to  her.  "  What's  the  use,"  cried 
poor  Schubert, "  when  you  have  already  got  all !" 

Had  not  art  been  his  real  mistress,  he  would  probably 


WORK  AND  ROMANCE.  237 

have  been  still  more  inconsolable.  Perhaps  no  one  ever 
knew  what  he  suffered  from  this  disappointment  in  early 
love.  Even  with  his  most  intimate  friends  he  was  always 
very  reserved  on  these  subjects.  That  he  was  not  insensi- 
ble to  the  charms  of  other  women  is  certain,  and  in  the 
matter  of  passing  intrigues  he  was  perhaps  neither  better 
nor  worse  than  many  other  young  men.  But  it  is  also  cer- 
tain that  no  time  or  absence  ever  changed  his  feelings  to- 
ward Caroline  Esterhazy,  for  whom  he  entertained  to  the 
last  day  of  his  life  the  same  hopeless  and  unrequited  pas- 
sion. In  Baron  Schonstein,  the  family  tenor,  he  found  an- 
other powerful  and  appreciative  admirer,  and  a  vocalist 
second  only  to  Vogl.  "  Dans  les  salons,"  writes  Liszt  in 
1838, "  j'entends  avec  un  plaisir  tres  vif,  et  sou  vent  avec 
une  emotion  qui  allait  jusqu'aux  larmes,  un  amateur  le 
Baron  Schonstein  dire  les  lieder  de  Schubert — Schubert,  le 
musicien,  le  plus  poete  qui  fut  jamais !" 

Schubert  was  not  a  happy  man,  and  as  he  advanced  in 
life  he  lost  more  and  more  of  his  natural  gayety  and  flow 
of  spirits,  and  at  times  would  even  sink  into  fits  of  the  deep- 
est despondency.  He  writes  to  a  dear  friend  in  1824, 

"  You  are  so  good  and  kind  that  you  will  forgive  me  much  which  oth- 
ers would  take  ill  of  me — in  a  word,  I  feel  myself  the  most  wretched  and 
unhappy  being  in  the  world !  Imagine  a  man  whose  health  will  never 
come  right  again,  and  who,  in  his  despair,  grows  restless  and  makes  things 
worse — a  man  whose  brilliant  hopes  have  all  come  to  naught,  to  whom  the 
happiness  of  love  and  friendship  offers  nothing  but  sorrow  and  bitterness, 
whom  the  feeling — the  inspiring  feeling,  at  least  of  the  beautiful,  threatens 
to  abandon  forever,  and  ask  yourself  whether  such  a  one  must  not  be  mis- 
erable ?  Every  night  when  I  go  to  sleep  I  hope  that  I  may  never  wake 
again,  and  every  morning  renews  the  grief  of  yesterday ;  my  affairs  are 
going  badly — we  have  never  any  money." 

No  doubt  Schubert  suffered  from  the  exhaustion  and  re- 
lapse which  is  the  torment  of  all  highly  sensitive  and  im- 
aginative temperaments.  But  his  troubles,  after  all,  were 


238  SCHUBERT. 

far  from  imaginary.  Step  by  step  life  was  turning  out  for 
him  a  detailed  and  irremediable  failure.  Crossed  in  early 
love,  he  devoted  himself  the  more  passionately  to  art,  and 
with  what  results  ?  He  had,  indeed,  a  small  knot  of  ad- 
mirers, but  to  the  public  at  large  he  was  comparatively  un- 
known. He  set  about  fifty  of  Goethe's  songs  to  music,  and 
sent  some  of  them  to  the  poet,  but  never  got  any  acknowl- 
edgment, nor  was  it  until  after  his  death  that  Goethe  paid 
him  the  compliment  of  a  tardy  recognition.  Although 
many  of  his  airs  were  treasured  up  in  the  monasteries,  when 
Weber  came  to  Vienna  in  1823  he  was  unacquainted  with 
any  of  his  music,  and  called  him  a  dolt;  and  in  1826,  when 
Schubert  humbly  applied  for  the  place  of  vice-organist  at 
the  Imperial  Chapel,  Chapel-master  Eybler  had  never  heard 
of  him  as  a  composer,  and  recommended  Weigl,  who  was 
accordingly  chosen  instead.  Although  the  publishers  ac- 
cepted a  few  of  his  songs,  he  constantly  saw  the  works  of 
men  like  Kalkbrenner  and  Romberg  preferred  to  his  own. 
Of  his  two  great  operas,  Alfonso  and  Estrella  was  practi- 
cally a  failure,  and  Fierrabras  was  neither  paid  for  nor  per- 
formed. Public  singers  not  unfrequently  refused  to  sing 
his  music,  and  his  last  and  greatest  symphony,  the  Seventh, 
was  pronounced  to  be  too  hard  for  the  band,  and  cast  aside. 
Much  of  this  failure  may  be  attributed,  no  doubt,  to  his 
constant  refusal  to  modify  his  compositions,  or  write  them 
down  to  the  public  taste.  His  behavior  toward  patrons 
and  publishers  was  not  conciliatory;  he  was  born  without 
the  "  get  on"  faculty  in  him,  and  was  eminently  deficient  in 
what  a  modern  preacher  has  called  the  "  divine  quality  of 
tact."  In  the  midst  of  all  these  disappointments,  although 
Schubert  was  never  deterred  from  expressing  his  opinion, 
his  judgment  of  his  rivals  was  never  embittered  or  unjust. 
He  was  absolutely  without  malice  or  envy,  and  a  warm 
eulogist  of  Weber  and  even  Rossini,  although  both  of  these 


WORK  AND  ROMANCE.  239 

favorites  were  flaunting  their  plumage  in  the  sunshine 
while  he  was  withering  in  the  shade. 

In  1824  he  revisited  the  Esterhazys  in  Hungary.  His 
little  love  was  now  sixteen,  but  with  her  dawning  woman- 
hood there  was  no  dawn  of  hope  for  him.  And  yet  he  was 
not  unhappy  in  her  society.  His  many  troubles  had  made 
him  so  accustomed  to  pain — it  was  so  natural  for  joy  to  be 
bitter,  and  life  to  be  "  mixed  with  death,"  "  and  now,"  he 
writes,  "I  am  more  capable  of  finding  peace  and  happiness 
in  myself."  All  through  the  bright  summer  months,  far 
into  the  autumn,  he  staid  there.  Many  must  have  been 
the  quiet  country  rambles  he  enjoyed  with  this  beloved 
family.  Marie  seems  now  to  have  become  his  confidante, 
and  from  the  tender  sympathy  she  gave  him,  and  the  care 
she  took  of  every  scrap  of  his  handwriting,  we  may  well 
believe  that  a  softer  feeling  than  that  of  mere  friendship 
may  have  arisen  in  her  breast  as  they  wandered  together 
among  the  Styrian  Hills,  or  listened  to  the  woodland  notes 
which  seem  to  be  still  ringing  through  some  of  his  inspired 
melodies.  Gentle  hearts!  —  where  are  they  now? — the 
honest  Count  and  Rosine — the  laughing,  affectionate  girls 
— the  simple-hearted,  the  gifted,  the  neglected  Schubert? 
— not  one  of  them  survives,  only  these  memories — like 
those  sad  garlands  of  immortelles  which  are  even  now  from 
year  to  year  laid  upon  the  tomb  of  Germany's  greatest 
song- writer. 

There  remains  little  more  to  be  told  of  Schubert's  life ; 
yet  one  scene  before  the  last  must  not  be  passed  by. 

For  thirty  years  Schubert  and  Beethoven  had  lived  in 

1OT        the  same  town  and  had  never  met.     Schubert 

Beethoven.  worshiped  at  a  distance.     "  Who,"  he  exclaimed, 

"  could  hope  to  do  any  thing  after  Beethoven  ?"     On  their 

first  meeting,  Beethoven  treated  Schubert  kindly,  but  with- 


240  SCHUBERT. 

out  much  appreciation,  and  contented  himself  with  point- 
ing out  to  him  one  or  two  mistakes  in  harmony.  Being 
quite  deaf,  he  requested  Schubert  to  write  his  answers;  but 
the  young  man's  hand  shook  so  from  nervousness  that  he 
could  do  and  say  nothing,  and  left  in  the  greatest  vexation 
and  disappointment.  It  was  only  during  his  last  illness 
that  Beethoven  learned  with  surprise  that  Schubert  had 
composed  more  than  five  hundred  songs,  and  from  that 
time  till  his  death  he  passed  many  hours  over  them.  His 
favorites  were  "  Iphigenia,"  "  The  Bounds  of  Humanity," 
"Omnipotence,"  "The  Young  Nun,"  "Viola,"  and  "The 
Miller's  Songs."  Between  the  intervals  of  his  suffering  he 
would  read  them  over  and  over,  and  was  repeatedly  heard 
to  exclaim  with  enthusiasm,  "  There  is,  indeed,  a  divine 
spark  in  Schubert.  I,  too,  should  have  set  this  to  music." 
But  the  days  of  Beethoven  were  numbered,  and  in  March 
of  the  year  1827  he  was  overtaken  by  his  last  illness. 
Several  of  his  friends,  hearing  of  his  dangerous  state,  came 
to  visit  him — among  them  came  Schubert,  with  his  friend 
Huttenbrenner.  Beethoven  was  lying  almost  insensible, 
but  as  they  approached  the  bed  he  appeared  to  rally  for  a 
moment,  looked  fixedly  at  them,  and  muttered  something 
unintelligible.  Schubert  stood  gazing  at  him  for  some 
moments  in  silence,  and  then  suddenly  burst  into  tears  and 
left  the  room.  On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  Schubert  and 
two  of  his  friends  were  sitting  together  in  a  tavern,  and 
after  the  German  fashion,  they  drank  to  the  soul  of  the 
great  man  whom  they  had  so  lately  borne  to  the  tomb. 
It  was  then  proposed  to  drink  to  that  one  of  them  who 
should  be  the  first  to  follow  him — and  hastily  filling  up  the 
cup,  Schubert  drank  to  himself! 

In  the  following  year  (1828)  he  finished  his  seventh  and 
last  great  Symphony  in  C,  and  produced,  among  other 


LAST  DATS.  241 

108.  works,  the  Quintet  in  C,  the  Mass  in  E  flat,  and 
UetDkyi.  the  sonata  NO.  3  (Halle  edit.),  B  flat  major.  His 
health  had  been  failing  for  some  time  past,  but  although 
he  now  suffered  from  constant  headache  and  exhaustion, 
we  do  not  find  that  he  ever  relaxed  his  labors  in  composi- 
tion. In  the  spring  he  gave  his  first  and  last  concert. 
The  programme  was  composed  entirely  of  his  own  music. 
The  hall  was  crowded  to  overflowing ;  the  enthusiasm  of 
Vienna  was  at  length  fairly  awakened,  and  the  crown  of 
popularity  and  success  seemed  at  last  within  his  reach ;  but 
the  hand  which  should  have  grasped  it  was  already  grow- 
ing feeble.  He  thought  of  going  to  the  hills  in  July ;  but 
when  July  came  he  had  not  sufficient  money.  He  still 
looked  forward  to  visiting  Hungary  in  the  autumn,  but  was 
attacked  with  fever  in  September,  and  expired  November 
19, 1828,  not  having  yet  completed  his  thirty-second  year. 

He  lies  near  Beethoven,  in  the  crowded  cemetery  of 
Wahring.  On  the  pediment  beneath  his  bust  is  the  fol- 
lowing inscription : 

"  '  Music  buried  here  a  rich  possession, 

and  yet  fairer  hopes. ' 

Here  lies  FRANZ  SCHCBERT  ;  born  Jan.  31, 1797 ;  died  Nov.  19,  1828, 
aged  31  years." 

We  pass  from  the  composer  to  his  works.     Works  be- 
109.       longing  to  the  highest  order  of  genius  depend 

His  Compo- 
sitions,        upon  the  rare  combination  of  three  distinct  quali- 
ties —  (l)  Invention,  (2)  Expression,  (3)   Concentration. 
Speaking  generally,  we  may  say  that  Beethoven  and  Mo- 
zart possessed  all  three.    Mendelssohn,*  the  second  and 

*  The  quality,  at  once  delicate,  tender,  and  sublime,  of  Mendelssohn's 
creations  is  not  questioned ;  but  the  endless  though  bewitching  repetitions, 
or  inversions  of  the  same  phrase,  and  an  identity  of  form  which  amounts 
to  more  than  mere  mannerism,  compel  us  to  admit  that  the  range  of  his 
musical  ideas  was  limited. 
16 


242  SCHUBERT. 

third  in  the  highest  degree;  Schumann,*  the  first  and 
third ;  Schubert,  the  first  and  second.  As  fast  as  his  ideas 
arose  they  were  poured  forth  on  paper.  He  was  like  a 
gardener  bewildered  with  the  luxuriant  growth  springing 
up  around  him.  He  was  too  rich  for  himself— his  fancy 
outgrew  his  powers  of  arrangement.  Beethoven  will  often 
take  one  dry  subject,  and,  by  force  of  mere  labor  and  con- 
centration, kindle  it  into  life  and  beauty.  Schubert  will 
shower  a  dozen  upon  you,  and  hardly  stop  to  elaborate 
one.  His  music  is  more  the  work  of  a  gifted  dreamer,  of 
one  carried  along  irresistibly  by  the  current  of  his  thoughts, 
than  of  one  who,  like  Beethoven,  worked  at  his  idea  until 
its  expression  was  without  a  flaw.  His  thought  possess- 
es Schubert — Beethoven  labors  till  he  has  possessed  his 
thought. 

Schubert  has  left  compositions  in  every  style — operas, 
church  music,  symphonies,  songs,  and  unexplored  masses 
of  piano-forte  music.  His  operas  were  uniformly  unsuccess- 
ful, with  the  exception  of  "  War  in  the  Household,"  which 
is  on  a  very  small  scale,  and  has  the  advantage  over  all  the 
others  of  an  experienced  librettist,  Castelli.  The  truth  is 
that  Schubert  was  probably  deficient  in  the  qualities  which 
are  necessary  to  the  success  of  an  opera.  Besides  melody, 
harmony,  facility,  and  learning,  an  attention  to  stage  ef- 
fect, a  certain  tact  of  arrangement,  and,  above  all  things 
(what  Schubert  never  possessed),  the  faculty  of  coming  to 
an  end,  are  necessary.  Any  thing  like  diffuseness  is  a 
fault.  A  successful  opera  must  have  definite  points  to 
work  up  to,  and  a  good  crisis.  How  many  Italian  operas 

*  Again,  extraordinary  powers  of  expression  are  not  denied  to  Schu- 
mann. He  sometimes  hits  you,  like  Robert  Browning,  with  the  force  of 
a  sledge-hammer,  but  yon  often  feel  that,  like  that  poet,  he  is  laboring  with 
some  thought  for  which  he  can  find  and  for  which  there  it  no  adequate 
verbal  expression. 


HIS  COMPOSITIONS.  243 

depend  upon  three  situations,  one  quartet,  and  a  good 
murder !  And  how  many  of  them  are  worth  a  page  of 
Schubert's  music  ? 

Some  of  his  Masses  and  Psalms  are  still  unpublished ; 
the  few  we  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  hear  possess  all 
the  breadth  and  sweetness  of  his  secular  works.  The  twen- 
ty-third Psalm,  for  women's  voices,  might  be  sung  by  a 
chorus  of  angels. 

Schubert  wrote  in  all  seven  complete  symphonies.  Of 
these,  the  sixth,  in  C,  is  interesting,  as  showing  the  transi- 
tion from  the  forms  of  Mozart  and  Beethoven  to  true  Schu- 
bertian.  The  seventh  and  last  (1828)  is  a  masterpiece, 
and  tastes  of  nothing  but  Schubert  from  beginning  to  end. 
Comparisons  of  merit  are  usually  senseless  or  unjust,  but 
diiferent  qualities  are  often  best  observed  by  the  light  of 
contrast.  In  Schubert's  piano-forte  music  and  symphonic 
writing  for  strings  or  full  orchestra  we  miss  the  firm  grip 
of  Beethoven,  the  masterful  art-weaving  completeness  of 
Mendelssohn,  the  learning  of  Spohr,  or  even  the  pure  melo- 
dic flow  of  Mozart ;  grip  there  is,  but  it  is  oftener  the  grip 
of  Phaeton  than  the  calm  might  of  Apollo ;  a  weaving 
there  is,  no  doubt,  but  like  the  weaving  of  the  Indian  loom 
— beautiful  in  its  very  irregularity ;  learning  there  is,  and 
that  of  the  highest  order,  because  instinctive ;  but  how  oft- 
en do  we  find  a  neglect  of  its  use  in  the  direction  of  cur- 
tailment or  finish ! — melodies  there  are  in  abundance,  but 
they  are  frequently  so  crowded  upon  each  other  with  a  de- 
structive exuberance  of  fancy  that  we  fail  to  trace  their 
musical  connection  or  affinity.  In  speaking  thus,  we  are 
dealing,  of  course,  with  characteristics  and  tendencies,  not 
with  invariable  qualities.  Movements  of  Schubert  might 
be  pointed  out  as  rounded  and  complete,  as  connected  in 
thought  and  perfect  in  expression,  as  the  highest  standard 
of  art  could  require ;  but  these  will  be  found  more  often 


244  SCHUBERT. 

among  his  piano-forte  four-hand  and  vocal  music  thau  in 
his  larger  works.  We  must,  however,  admit  that  the  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule  are  triumphant  ones,  and  criticism 
stands  disarmed  before  such  works  as  the  Quintet  in  C, 
the  Sonata  in  A  minor,  and  the  Seventh  Symphony. 

In  describing  this  symphony,  Schumann  has  not  fallen 
into  the  shallow  mistake  of  explaining  to  us  the  particular 
thought  which  the  author  had  in  his  mind ;  but,  while  ad- 
mitting that  probably  he  had  none,  and  that  the  music  was 
open  to  different  interpretations,  he  neither  there,  nor  else- 
where in  the  mass  of  his  criticism,  explains  how  the  same 
piece  of  music  can  mean  different  things,  or  why  people 
are  so  apt  to  insist  upon  its  meaning  something.  The  fact 
is,  when  we  say  a  piece  of  music  is  like  the  sea  or  the 
moon,  what  we  really  mean  is  that  it  excites  in  us  an  emo- 
tion like  that  created  by  the  sea  or  the  moon ;  but  the 
same  music  will  be  the  fit  expression  of  any  other  idea 
which  is  calculated  to  rouse  in  us  the  same  sort  of  feeling. 
As  far  as  music  is  concerned,  it  matters  not  whether  your 
imagination  deals  with  a  storm  gradually  subsiding  into 
calm,  passionate  sorrow  passing  into  resignation,  or  silence 
and  night  descending  upon  a  battle-field ;  in  each  of  the 
above  cases  the  kind  of  emotion  excited  is  the  same,  and 
will  find  a  sort  of  expression  in  any  one  of  these  different 
conceptions.  In  illustration  of  the  number  of  similar  ideas 
which  will  produce  the  same  emotion,  and  of  the  different 
ways  in  which  the  same  emotion  will  find  an  utterance,  see 
an  article  in  the  Argosy r,  IL,  by  Matthew  Browne :  "  It  has 
seemed  to  me  that  no  note  of  pain,  shriek  of  agony,  or 
shout  of  joy — -for  either  would  do — could  be  strong  enough 
to  express  sympathy  with  a  meadow  of  buttercups  tossed 
and  retossed  by  the  wind." 

How  often  in  Beethoven  is  it  impossible  to  decide  wheth- 
er he  is  bantering  or  scolding,  and  in  Mendelssohn  whether 
he  is  restless  with  joy  or  anxiety ! 


HIS  COMPOSITIONS.  245 

Thus  a  very  little  reflection  will  show  us  that  music  is 
not  necessarily  connected  with  any  definite  conception. 
Emotion,  not  thought,  is  the  sphere  of  music ;  and  emotion 
quite  as  often  precedes  as  follows  thought.  Although  a 
thought  will  often,  perhaps  always,  produce  an  emotion  of 
some  kind,  it  requires  a  distinct  effort  of  the  mind  to  fit  an 
emotion  with  its  appropriate  thought.  Emotion  is  the  at- 
mosphere in  which  thought  is  steeped — that  which  lends 
to  thought  its  tone  or  temperature — that  to  which  thought 
is  often  indebted  for  half  its  power.  In  listening  to  music, 
we  are  like  those  who  gaze  through  different  colored  lenses. 
Now  the  air  is  dyed  with  a  fiery  hue,  but  presently  a  wave 
of  rainbow  green,  or  blue,  or  orange  floats  by,  and  varied 
tints  melt  down  through  infinite  gradations,  or  again  rise 
into  eddying  contrasts,  with  such  alterations  as  fitly  mir- 
ror in  the  clear  deeps  of  harmony  the  ever-changeful  and 
subtle  emotions  of  the  soul.  Can  any  words  express  these? 
No !  Words  are  but  poor  interpreters  in  the  realms  of 
emotion.  Where  all  words  end,  music  begins ;  where  they 
suggest,  it  realizes ;  and  hence  the  secret  of  its  strange,  in- 
effable power.  It  reveals  us  to  ourselves;  it  represents 
those  modulations  and  temperamental  changes  which  es- 
cape all  verbal  analysis ;  it  utters  what  must  else  remain 
forever  unuttered  and  unutterable ;  it  feels  that  deep,  in- 
eradicable instinct  within  us  of  which  all  art  is  only  the 
reverberated  echo — that  craving  to  express,  through  the 
medium  of  the  senses,  the  spiritual  and  eternal  realities 
which  underlie  them !  Of  course,  this  language  of  the 
emotions  has  to  be  studied  like  any  other.  To  the  inapt 
or  uncultured,  music  seems  but  the  graceful  or  forcible 
union  of  sounds  with  words,  or  a  pleasant  meaningless  vi- 
bration of  sound  alone.  But  to  him  who  has  read  the  open 
secret  aright,  it  is  a  language  for  the  expression  of  the 
soul's  life  beyond  all  others.  The  true  musician  cares  very 


246  SCHUBERT. 

little  for  your  definite  ideas,  or  things  which  can  be  ex- 
pressed by  words — he  knows  you  can  give  him  these ;  what 
he  sighs  for  is  the  expression  of  the  immaterial,  the  impal- 
pable, the  great  "imponderables"  of  our  nature,  and  he 
turns  from  a  world  of  painted  forms  and  oppressive  sub- 
stances to  find  the  vague  and  yet  perfect  rapture  of  his 
dream  in  the  wild,  invisible  beauty  of  his  divine  mistress ! 
Although  music  appeals  simply  to  the  emotions,  and  rep- 
resents no  definite  images  in  itself,  we  are  justified  in  using 
any  language  which  may  serve  to  convey  to  others  our  mu- 
sical impressions.  Words  will  often  pave  the  way  for  the 
more  subtle  operations  of  music,  and  unlock  the  treasures 
which  sound  alone  can  rifle,  and  hence  the  eternal  popular- 
ity of  song.  Into  the  region  of  song  Schubert  found  him- 
self forced  almost  against  his  will.  He  could  get  himself 
heard  in  no  other,  and  this,  after  all,  proved  to  be  the  sphere 
in  which  he  was  destined  to  reign  supreme.  His  inspira- 
tions came  to  him  in  electric  flashes  of  short  and  over- 
whelming brilliancy.  The  white  heat  of  a  song  like  the 
"  Erl  King,"  or  "  Ungeduld,"  must  have  cooled  if  carried 
beyond  the  limits  of  a  song.  Nowhere  is  Schubert  so  great 
as  in  the  act  of  rendering  some  sudden  phase  of  passion. 
Songs  like  "  Mignon"  and  "  Marguerite  Spinning"  remind 
one  of  those  miracles  of  photography  where  the  cloud  is 
caught  in  actual  motion— the  wave  upon  the  very  curl. 
Schubert  was  always  singing.  The  Midas  of  music,  every 
thing  dissolved  itself  into  a  stream  of  golden  melody  be- 
neath his  touch.  All  his  instrumental  works  are  full  of 
melodies  piled  on  melodies.  We  need  not  wonder  at  the 
number  of  his  songs.  He  began  by  turning  every  poem 
he  could  get  hold  of  into  a  song,  and,  had  he  lived  long 
enough,  he  would  hare  set  the  whole  German  literature  to 
music.  But  he  who,  like  Coleridge,  is  always  talking,  is 
not  always  equally  well  worth  listening  to.  Schubert  com- 


HIS  COMPOSITIONS.  24V 

posed  with  enormous  rapidity,  but  seldom  condensed  or 
pruned  sufficiently,  and  his  music  sometimes  suffers  from  a 
certain  slipper -and -dressing -gown  style,  suggestive  of  a 
man  who  was  in  the  habit  of  rising  late,  and  finishing  his 
breakfast  and  half  a  dozen  songs  together.  His  warmest 
admirers  can  not  be  quite  blind  to  an  occasional  slovenli- 
ness in  his  accompaniments ;  but,  like  Shelley,  he  is  so  rich 
in  his  atmospheric  effects  that  we  hardly  care  to  look  too 
nearly  at  the  mechanism.  His  songs  may  be  divided  into 
seven  classes.  We  can  do  no  more  at  present  than  barely 
enumerate  them,  pointing  out  specimens  of  perfect  beauty 
in  illustration  of  each.  We  quote  the  "  Wolfenbtlttel"  edi- 
tion, in  five  volumes,  edited  by  Sattler.  The  first  number 
refers  to  the  volume,  the  second  to  the  page. 

I.  Religious—"  Ave  Maria,"  ii.,  248  ;   "  The  Young  Nun,"  ii.,  222. 
II.  Supernatural— " The  Double,"  v.,  183;   "The  Ghost's  Greeting," 
iii.,431. 

III.  Symbolical—1'  The  Crow,"  ii.,  409  ;  "  The  Erl  King,"  i.,  2. 

IV.  Classical—"  Philoctetes,"  iv.,  97 ;  "  JEschylus,"  iv.,  125. 

V.  Descriptive—"  The  Post, "  ii. ,  406 ;   "A  Group  in  Tartarus, "  i. ,  1 12. 
VL  Songs  of  Meditation — "The  Wanderer,"  i.,  20;    "Night   and 

Dreams,"  ii.,  225. 

VII.  Songs  of  Passion — "Mignon,"  iv.,  176;   "Thine  is  my  heart,"  i., 
132 ;  "By  the  Sea,"  v.,  181 ;  "Anne  Lyle,"  ii.,  348. 

Notwithstanding  the  opinion  of  an  illustrious  critic  to 
the  contrary,  we  must  be  allowed  to  doubt  whether  Schu- 
bert ever  reached  his  climax.  Those  works  of  his  latest 
period  not  manifestly  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  approach- 
ing death — e.  g.t  "  Seventh  Symphony"  and  "  A  minor  So- 
nata"— bear  the  most  distinct  marks  of  progress;  and  dur- 
ing the  last  year  of  his  life  he  had  applied  himself  with  vig- 
or to  the  study  of  Bach,  Handel,  and  the  stricter  forms  of 
fugue  and  counterpoint.  What  the  result  of  such  severe 
studies  might  have  been  upon  a  mind  so  discursive  we  can 
only  conjecture.  He  might  have  added  to  his  own  rich- 


248  SCHUBERT. 

ness  more  of  Beethoven's  power  and  of  Mendelssohn's  fin. 
ish ;  but,  in  the  words  of  Schumann,  "He  has  done  enough;'* 
and  as  we  take  a  last  glance  at  the  vast  and  beautiful  ar- 
ray of  his  compositions,  we  can  only  exclaim  again  with 
Liszt, "  Schubert ! — Schubert,  le  musicien,le  plus  poete  qui 
fut  jamaia !" 


CHOPIN. 

Bom  1810,  Died  1849. 


e 


110 


VI. 

WHAT  SCHUBERT  was  to  Song,  CHOPIN  was  to  the  Piano  ; 
but  while  the  genius  of  Schubert  ranged  freely 
over  every  field  of  musical  composition,  that  of 
cai  Schools.  Chopin  was  confined  within  certain  narrow  limits. 
Borne  into  the  mid-current  of  that  great  wave  of  Romanti- 
cism first  set  in  motion  by  Schubert,  he  was  destined,  with 
the  aid  of  Liszt  and  Berlioz,  to  establish  its  influence  per- 
manently in  Paris.  Paris  —  at  once  so  superficially  brilliant 
and  so  profoundly  acute  —  the  same  in  theology,  philoso- 
phy, and  the  arts  —  always  slow  to  receive  German  influ- 
ences, and  always  sure  to  adopt  them  in  the  long-run  — 
Paris  became  in  reality  the  great  foreign  depot  of  the  Ro- 
mantic school.  But  political  events  had  something  to  do 
with  this.  About  1832,  the  effervescence  of  the  first  years 


250  CHOPIN. 

of  the  July  Revolution  seemed  to  pass  naturally  into  ques- 
tions  of  art  and  literature,  and  as  the  French  are  occasion- 
ally tired  of  blood  but  never  of  glory,  the  great  battle  of 
the  Romantic  and  Classical  schools  was  fought  out  in  the 
bloodless  arena  of  the  arts. 

It  was  the  old  contest,  with  which  in  so  many  other 
forms  we  have  grown  familiar — what  Mr. Mill  calls  "the 
struggle  between  liberty  and  authority"* — or  as  Mr.  Car- 
lyle  once  said  at  Edinburg, "  the  question  of  whether  we 
should  be  led  by  the  old  formalities  of  use  and  wont,  or  by 
something  that  had  been  conceived  of  new  in  the  souls  of 
men."  Dead  fruit  has  to  be  shaken  periodically  from  ev- 
ery b'anch  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  But  if  any  good  is 
to  be  done,  the  shaking  must  be  severe  and  thorough. 
The  constantly  recurring  question  between  the  new  wine 
and  the  old  bottles  admits  of  no  compromise.  "  What 
compromise,"!  asks  Liszt, "  could  there  be  between  those 
who  would  not  admit  the  possibility  of  writing  in  any  oth- 
er than  the  established  manner,  and  those  ,  who  thought 
that  the  artist  should  be  allowed  to  choose  such  forms  as 
he  deemed  best  suited  for  the  expression  of  his  own  ideas  ?" 
We  know  how  the  question  was  settled.  We  know  how 
Mendelssohn  saved  the  movement  from  suicidal  extrava- 
gance in  its  early  stages — while  Schumann,  and,  later  still, 
Wagner,  have  done  something  toward  sanctioning  its  very 
excesses.  The  cause  of  freedom,  in  music  as  elsewhere,  is 
now  very  nearly  triumphant;  but  at  a  time  when  its  ad- 
versaries were  many  and  powerful,  we  can  hardly  imagine 
the  sacred  bridge  of  liberty  kept  by  a  more  stalwart  trio 
than  Schubert  the  Armorer,  Chopin  the  Refiner,  and  Liszt 
the  Thunderer. 

*  Mill  on  "Liberty,"  chap.  i. 

t  Liszt's  fifth  chapter,  "Life  of  Chopin,"  contains  a  statement  of  the 
points  at  issue. 


FIRST  TEARS.  251 

FREDERICK  FRANCIS  CHOPIN  was  born  in  1810,  at  Zela- 
m  zowa-Wola,  near  Warsaw.  His  family  was  of 
First  Years.  French  extraction,  and,  though  gifted  with  a  cer- 
tain native  distinction,  seems  to  have  been  neither  rich  nor 
prosperous.  Frederick  was  a  frail  and  delicate  child,  and 
a  source  of  constant  anxiety  to  his  parents.  He  was  pet- 
ted and  coaxed  on  from  year  to  year,  and  seemed  to  gain 
strength  very  slowly.  He  was  a  quiet  and  thoughtful 
child,  with  the  sweetest  of  dispositions — always  suffering 
and  never  complaining.  At  the  age  of  nine  he  began  to 
learn  music  from  Ziwna,  a  passionate  disciple  of  Sebastien 
Bach ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  either  he  himself  or  his 
friends  were  at  that  time  aware  of  his  remarkable  powers. 
In  1820  he  was  introduced  to  Madame  Catalani,  who  for 
some  reason  gave  him  a  watch — whether  merely  as  a  wom- 
an she  was  attracted  toward  the  pale  and  delicate  boy,  or 
as  an  artist,  with  a  certain  prophetic  instinct,  when  his  life 
was  yet  in  the  bud — 

"  She  too  foretold  the  perfect  rose" — 

we  can  not  say.  At  any  rate,  the  bud  soon  began  to  open. 
Through  the  kindness  of  Prince  Radziwill,  a  liberal  patron 
of  rising  talent,  Chopin  was  sent  to  the  Warsaw  College, 
where  he  received  the  best  education,  and  where  his  music- 
al powers  began  to  make  themselves  felt.  At  the  age  of 
sixteen  he  became  the  favorite  pupil  of  Joseph  Eisner,  Di- 
rector of  the  Conservatory  at  Warsaw,  and  from  him  he 
learned  those  habits  of  severe  study,  and  that  practical  sci- 
ence, which  gave  him  in  later  years  so  complete  a  mastery 
over  his  subtle  and  dreamy  creations.  At  college  he  made 
many  friends,  more  especially  among  the  young  nobility, 
and  upon  being  introduced  to  their  families,  he  assumed 
without  an  effort  that  position  in  society  which  he  ever 
after  retained,  and  for  which  nature  had  so  peculiarly  fit- 
ted him.  "  Gentle,  sensitive,  and  very  lovely,  he  united 


252  CHOPIN. 

the  charm  of  adolescence  with  the  suavity  of  a  more  ma- 
ture age ;  through  the  want  of  muscular  development  he 
retained  a  peculiar  beauty,  an  exceptional  physiognomy, 
which,  if  we  may  venture  so  to  speak,  belonged  to  neither 

age  nor  sex It  was  more  like  the  ideal  creations 

with  which  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages  adorned  the 
Christian  temples.  The  delicacy  of  his  constitution  ren- 
dered him  interesting  in  the  eyes  of  women.  The  full  yet 
grateful  cultivation  of  his  mind,  the  sweet  and  captivating 
originality  of  his  conversation,  gained  for  him  the  atten- 
tion of  the  most  enlightened  men,  while  those  less  highly 
cultivated  liked  him  for  the  exquisite  courtesy  of  his  man- 
ners."* 

The  manners  of  Chopin  seem  to  have  impressed  every 
112  one  with  the  same  sense  of  refinement.  Tinged 
is  Manners.  yfifa  a  certam  melancholy  which  was  never  ob- 
trusive, and  which  exhaled  itself  freely  in  his  music  alone, 
he  was  nevertheless  a  most  charming  companion.  Only 
those  who  knew  him  well  knew  how  reserved  he  really  was. 
He  received  every  one  with  the  same  facile  courtesy,  and 
was  so  ready  to  be  absorbed  by  others  that  few  noticed 
how  little  he  ever  gave  in  return.  He  was  unmoved  by 
praise,  but  not  always  unmortified  by  failure ;  yet  he  never 
lost  that  quiet  and  affable  dignity  which  some  may  have 
thought  a  little  cold  and  satirical,  but  which  to  others 
seemed  at  once  natural  and  charming.  He  was  usually 
cheerful,  but  seldom  showed  deep  feeling.  He  was  not, 
however,  deficient  in  impulse  nor  wanting  in  depth,  and 
beneath  a  somewhat  placid  exterior  lay  concealed  the 
warmest  family  affections,  a  burning  patriotism,  a  passion- 
ate love,  and  a  stern,  unalterable  devotion  to  the  true  prin- 
ciples of  his  art. 

*  George  Sand. 


HIS  STTLE.-PARIS.  253 

Soon  after  completing  his  education  at  "Warsaw  he  visit- 
113>  ed  Vienna,  where  he  played  frequently  in  public ; 
His  style,  j.^  j^sz^  na(j  been  before  him,  and  he  found  those 
large  audiences,  whose  ears  had  been  so  lately  stunned 
with  the  thunder  of  cascades  and  hurricanes,  wholly  unpre- 
pared to  listen  to  the  murmuring  of  the  waterfall  or  the 
sighing  of  the  midnight  wind.  The  genius  of  Chopin  could 
never  cope  with  the  masses.  "  I  am  not  suited  for  con- 
cert-giving," he  said  to  Liszt.  "  The  public  intimidate  me 
— their  breath  stifles  me.  You  are  destined  for  it,  for 
when  you  do  not  gain  your  public,  you  have  the  force  to 
assault,  to  overwhelm,  to  compel  them."  But  he  found 
some  compensation  for  the  indifferentism  of  the  many  in 
the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  the  few.  A  little  circle  of 
friends,  consisting  of  several  distinguished  amateurs,  and 
some  of  the  first  artists  of  the  day,  began  to  gather  round 
the  new  pianist,  and  the  public  prints  soon  took  the  hint, 
and  described  him  as  "  a  master  of  the  first  rank,"  and  the 
most  remarkable  meteor  then  shining  in  the  musical  firma- 
ment, and  so  forth.* 

After  the  Revolution  of  1830,  the  position  of  Poland 
114  seemed  more  hopeless  than  ever,  and  Chopin,  like  so 
Panfl>  many  of  his  compatriots,  determined  to  leave  his 
country,  and  seek  a  temporary  asylum  in  England.  But 
unforeseen  events  delayed  the  accomplishment  of  this  plan. 
On  his  way  to  England  he  often  said,  with  a  sad  and  satir- 
ical smile,  "  he  passed  through  Paris ;"  but  when  he  left 
Paris  it  was  not  for  London,  but  for  an  island  in  the  Medi- 
terranean. Great  was  the  curiosity  in  some  French  circles 
when  Chopin's  visit  was  announced.  All  the  first  musi- 
cians and  connoisseurs,  including  Liszt,  M.  Pleyel,  Kalk- 
brenner,  Field,  and  others,  assembled  in  M.  Vleyel's  con- 
*  Leipsic  Gazette,  1829,  No.  46. 


254  CHOPIN. 

cert-rooms  to  hear  him.  Chopin  played  his  First  Concerto 
and  several  of  his  detached  pieces,  and  the  sensation  which 
he  produced  is  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  Liszt  and  oth- 
ers who  were  present  on  that  occasion.  But,  while  all 
were  astonished,  some  were  not  convinced,  and  sober  pian- 
ists like  Kalkbrenner  took  exception  to  such  unconstitu- 
tional effects  as  the  new  virtuose  was  in  the  habit  of  pro- 
ducing by  using  his  third  finger  for  his  thumb,  and  vice 
versd.  Chopin  was  at  once  received  into  the  best  society, 
and  here  he  breathed  the  atmosphere  most  congenial  to 
him.  Unlike  Schubert,  he  was  not  averse  to  giving  les- 
sons, but  chose  only  pupils  of  the  highest  natural  endow- 
ments ;  and  when  we  add  that  the  most  distinguished  and 
beautiful  women  in  Paris  eagerly  sought  his  instructions 
on  any  terms,  we  can  imagine  him  engaged  in  a  more  un- 
palatable occupation.  Chopin,  in  a  word,  became  the  rage : 
he  was  filed  in  the  salons,  and  sought  after  by  the  highest 
circles.  There  he  formed  many  admirable  pupils,  who 
closely  imitated  his  style,  and  generally  played  nothing 
but  his  music. 

Meanwhile  he  lived  quietly  in  the  Chaussee  d'Antin — 
115  shunned  the  celebrities,  literary  and  philosophic- 
HiB  Friends.  ai_seldom  entertained,  and  objected  to  the  in- 
vasion of  his  privacy.  But  his  friends  and  admirers  would 
sometimes  take  no  refusal,  and  occasionally  invade  his 
apartments  in  a  body.  Through  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Liszt, 
who  was  usually  the  ringleader  in  such  disturbances,  we 
can  easily  transport  ourselves  in  imagination  to  one  of 
these  impromptu  levees.  It  is  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  Chopin  is  seated  at  the  piano,  the  room  is  dimly 
lighted  by  a  few  wax  candles.  Several  men  of  brilliant 
renown  are  grouped  in  the  luminous  zone  immediately 
around  the  piano. 


HIS  FRIENDS.  255 

HEINE,  the  sad  humorist,  leans  over  his  shoulder,  and  aa 
the  tapering  fingers  wander  meditatively  over  the  ivory 
keys,  asks  "  if  the  trees  at  moonlight  sang  always  so  har- 
moniously." 

MEYERBEER  is  seated  by  his  side :  his  grave  and  thought- 
ful head  moves  at  times  with  a  tacit  acquiescence  and  de- 
light, and  he  almost  forgets  the  ring  of  his  own  Cyclopaean 
harmonies  in  listening  to  the  delicate  Arabesque -woven 
mazourkas  of  his  friend. 

ADOLPHE  NOURRIT,  the  noble  and  ascetic  artist,  stands 
apart.  He  has  something  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Middle 
Ages  about  him.  In  his  later  years  he  refused  to  paint 
any  subject  which  was  wanting  in  true  dignity.  Like 
Chopin,  he  served  art  with  a  severe  exclusiveness  and  a 
passionate  devotion. 

EUGENE  DELACROIX  leans  against  the  piano,  absorbed  in 
meditation — developing,  it  may  be,  in  his  own  mind,  some 
form  of  beauty,  or  some  splendid  tint,  suggested  by  the 
strange  analogies  which  exist  between  sound  and  color. 

"Buried  in  a/awtew&7,with  her  arms  resting  on  a  table, 
sat  Madame  SAND,  curiously  attentive,  gracefully  subdued" 
(Liszt).  She  was  listening  to  the  language  of  the  emo- 
tions ;  fascinated  by  the  subtle  gradations  of  thought  and 
feeling  which  she  herself  delighted  to  express,  she  may 
have  there  learned  that  wondrous  melody  of  language 
which  so  often  reminds  one  of  a  meditation  by  Chopin. 
It  is  in  memory  of  some  such  golden  hours  that  she  writes, 
"  There  is  no  mightier  art  than  this,  to  awaken  in  man  the 
sublime  consciousness  of  his  own  humanity ;  to  paint  be- 
fore his  mind's  eye  the  rich  splendors  of  nature ;  the  joy 
of  meditation ;  the  national  character  of  a  people;  the  pas- 
sionate tumult  of  their  hopes  and  fears ;  the  languor  and 
despondency  of  their  sufferings.  Remorse,  violence,  terror, 
control,  despair,  enthusiasm,  faith,  disquietude,  glory,  calm 


256  CHOPIN. 

— these  and  a  thousand  other  nameless  emotions  belong  to 
music.  Without  stooping  to  a  puerile  imitation  of  noises 
and  effects,  she  transports  us  in  the  spirit  to  strange  and 
distant  scenea  There  we  wander  to  and  fro  in  the  dim 
air,  and,  like  JEneas  in  the  Elysian  fields,  all  we  behold  is 
greater  than  on  earth,  godlike,  changed,  idealized  !"* 

It  was  soon  after  the  extraordinary  creation  of  u  Lelia," 
in  which  all  the  vials  of  her  passionate  scorn  are  poured 
out  upon  man,  while  every  thing  except "  the  Eternal  Fem- 
inine"! i8  exalted  in  woman,  that  Madame  Sand  first  met 
Chopin.  She  was  then  suffering  from  that  exhaustion  and 
lassitude  which  generally  follows  the  attempt  to  realize  an 
impossible  ideal.  Her  creation  was  still  before  her,  but  it 
did  not  satisfy  her ;  like  the  statue  of  Pygmalion,  it  want- 
ed life.  What  was,  after  all,  the  world  of  dreams  to  her,  if 
there  were  no  realities  to  correspond  to  them  ?  She  would 
not  ask  for  a  perfect  realization,  but,  womanlike,  something 
she  must  have.  She  who  "had  surprised  such  ineffable 
smiles  on  the  faces  of  the  dead"J — she  who  "  had  dreamed 
of  scenes  which  must  exist  somewhere,  either  on  the  earth 
or  in  some  of  the  planets,  whose  light  we  love  to  gaze  upon 
in  the  forests  when  the  moon  has  set"§ — seemed  to  find  for 
the  time  an  outward  reflection  of  her  ideal  world  in  the 
mind  and  music  of  Chopin.  Her  strong,  energetic  person- 
ality at  once  absorbed  the  fragile  musician.  She  drew  him 
as  a  magnet  draws  steel.  He  was  necessary  to  her.  She 
felt  that  one  side  of  her  nature  had  never  been  adequately 
expressed.  She  was  many-sided.  She  would  have  every 
thing  in  turn.  She  would  lay  heaven  and  earth  under  con- 
tribution. The  passing  moment  was  her  eternity.  Noth- 
ing seemed  to  her  limited  which  filled  the  present  phase. 
For  a  time,  in  the  course  of  her  imperious  self-develop- 

*  "Consuelo."  I  "  Spiridion." 

t  "  Das  ewig  Weibliche."— Goethe.       §  "  Lettres  d'un  Voyageur." 


CHOPIN  AND  MADAME  SAND.  257 

ment,  the  part  represented  to  her  the  whole,  and  thus  it 
happened  that  Chopin,  whose  whole  was  only  a  part,  was 
offered  up,  among  others,  upon  the  altar  of  her  comprehen- 
sive and  insatiable  originality. 

In  his  twenty-seventh  year  (1837)  Chopin  was  attacked 
lie.  with  the  lung  disease  which  had  threatened  him 
Madame  Sand,  from  his  earliest  childhood.  Madame  Sand  had 
now  become  his  constant  and  devoted  companion,  and  with 
her  he  was  induced  to  leave  the  heated  drawing-rooms 
and  perfumed  boudoirs  of  Paris  for  the  soft  and  balmy 
breezes  of  the  South.  They  finally  settled  in  the  island  of 
Majorca,  and  for  the  events  which  followed  we  must  refer 
the  reader  to  the  pages  of  "  Lucrezia  Floriani,"  where  Ma- 
dame Sand  is  "  La  Floriani,"  Chopin  the  "  Prince  Karol," 
and  Liszt  the  "  Count  Salvator  Albani"  Those  who  have 
lingered  in  feeble  health  by  the  shores  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean know  how  from  those  sunny  waters  and  cloudless 
skies  a  sweet,  new  life  seems  to  pass  into  the  veins,  while, 
as  it  were,  Nature  herself  arises  to  tend  her  sickly  children. 
The  grounds  of  the  Villa  Floriani  were  bounded  only  by 
the  sand  of  the  sea-shore — here  and  there  the  foliage  dip- 
ped into  the  water.  Can  we  wonder  if,  in  this  momentary 
and  delusive  rest,  health  returned  to  the  overtasked  and 
exhausted  musician,  or  that  some  of  his  loveliest  inspira- 
tions arose  as  he  lingered  by  the  blooming  coast,  gazed 
upon  the  summer  sea,  or  floated  out  into  its  moonlit  wa- 
ters? 

He  returned  to  Paris  with  a  show  of  health  which  was 
soon  to  disappear  beneath  the  shocks  of  passion  and  disap- 
pointment which  now  awaited  him.  The  dream  of  Cho- 
pin's life  was  union  with  Madame  Sand  in  marriage.  He 
had  not  followed  her  in  her  speculations — he  did  not  agree 
with  her  conclusions — he  only  prayed  that  what  had  be- 
17 


258  CHOPIN. 

come  dearer  to  him  than  life  itself  might  be  secured  to  him 
forever,  and  he  asked  the  woman  he  loved  to  sacrifice  her 
philosophical  opinions  to  his  passionate  devotion.  But, 
unfortunately,  marriage  found  no  place  in  Madame  Sand's 
system  of  morals.  She  considered  it  a  snare  to  a  man  and 
a  delusion  to  a  woman.  This  controversy  first  brought 
out  the  glaring  differences  of  character  which  had  always 
existed  between  them,  and  from  the  hour  of  Madame  Sand's 
deliberate  refusal  Chopin  was  seized  with  a  restless  and 
inextinguishable  jealousy.  Although  Madame  Sand  had 
been  considerate  and  consistent  enough  to  remove  every 
cause,  yet  Chopin  was  never  satisfied,  and  in  his  misery 
and  impatience  he  began  to  attack  her  philosophy  and  re- 
ligion. It  was  a  fatal  step !  Off  his  own  peculiar  ground 
he  was  not  able  to  meet  her.  The  "Floriani"  confesses 
that  at  last  she  grew  tired  of  his  endless  reproaches,  and 
the  knell  of  their  separation  at  length  sounded.  It  could 
not  be  otherwise.  They  met  and  parted  in  dreamland, 
and  it  is  the  keenest  satire  on  Madame  Sand's  philosophy 
of  passion  that  an  intimacy,  begun  with  the  conviction  that 
here  at  last  were  all  the  elements  of  a  deep  and  enduring 
.union,  should  end  with  the  mournful  confession  that "  two 
natures,  the  one  rich  in  its  exuberance,  the  other  in  its  ex- 
clusiveness,  could  never  really  mingle,  and  that  a  whole 
world  separated  them  !"* 

But  the  love  that  was  only  an  episode  in  the  life  of  Ma- 
dame Sand  proved  to  be  the  whole  life  of  Chopin.  "  All 
the  cords,"  he  would  frequently  say,  "  that  bound  me  to 
life  are  broken."  From  this  time  his  health  visibly  de- 
clined. He  was  soon  seized  with  another  severe  attack  of 
his  old  complaint,  but  he  was  now  no  longer  tended  by  his 
incomparable  nurse.  Her  place  was  supplied  by  his  favor- 
ite pupil,  M.  Gutman,"  whose  presence,"  he  said,"  was  dear- 
"  Lucrezia  Floriani." 


ENGLAND.  259 

er  to  him  than  that  of  any  other  person."  Contrary  to  ex- 
pectation, he  rallied ;  but  a  great  change  had  passed  over 
him ;  he  had  lost  much  of  his  outward  equanimity,  and 
looked  so  pale  and  cadaverous  that  his  friends  hardly  rec- 
ognized him.  He  soon  began  to  resume  his  former  occu- 
pations, but  with  an  ever-growing  restlessness  which  an- 
nounced too  surely  the  beginning  of  the  end.  He  seemed 
utterly  careless  about  his  health  :  "  Why  should  he  care  ?" 
he  would  sometimes  ask;  there  was  nothing  to  live  for 
now — "  no  second  friend."  He  had  "  passed  through  Paris" 
— Paris  could  never  be  the  same  to  him  again  —  he  had 
best  leave  it,  and  go  any  where — to  London.  So  his  friends 
and  disciples  assembled  once  more  in  M.  Pleyel's  rooms, 
and  there  they  heard  him  for  the  last  time.  In  vain  they 
besought  him  to  delay  his  visit;  Chopin  was  bent  upon 
leaving  Paris  immediately,  and,  although  threatened  with 
a  relapse,  at  the  most  inclement  season  of  the  year  he  start- 
ed for  England. 

His  fame  had  preceded  him,  and  the  highest  circles 
in.  opened  their  ranks  to  receive  him.  He  was  pre- 
Engiand.  gente(j  to  tjje  Queen  by  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland ; 
played  twice  in  public  at  Willis's  Rooms,  and  at  many 
private  concerts.  He  went  much  into  society,  sat  up  late 
at  night,  and  exposed  himself  to  constant  fatigues.  Against 
the  advice  of  his  physicians  he  next  visited  Scotland,  and 
returned  to  London  in  the  last  stage  of  consumption.  One 
more  concert,  the  last  he  ever  played  at — in  aid  of  his  ex- 
iled countrymen,  the  Poles — and  then  he  hurried  back  to 
Paris.  But  his  favorite  physician,  Dr.  Molin,  who  had 
saved  his  life  more  than  once,  was  dead,  and  Chopin  had 
no  confidence  in  any  other.  His  unnatural  energy  was 
now  succeeded  by  the  deepest  lassitude  and  dejection. 
He  scarcely  ever  left  his  bed,  and  seldom  spoke.  M.  Gut' 


260  CHOPIN. 

man,  Louise,  his  own  sister,  and  the  beautiful  and  accom« 
plished  Countess  Delphine  Potocka,  were  his  constant  at- 
tendants. 

One  evening  toward  sunset,  Chopin,  who  had  lain  insen- 
11&  sible  for  many  hours,  suddenly  rallied.  He  observed 
Death.  ^Q  countess,  draped  in  white,  standing  at  the  foot 
of  the  bed.  She  was  weeping  bitterly.  "  Sing !"  mur- 
mured the  dying  man.  She  had  a  lovely  voice.  It  was  a 
strange  request,  but  so  earnest  a  one  that  his  friends  wheel- 
ed the  piano  from  the  adjoining  parlor  to  his  bedroom 
door,  and  there,  as  the  twilight  deepened,  with  the  last 
rays  of  the  setting  sun  streaming  into  the  room,  the  count- 
ess Bang  that  famous  canticle  to  the  Virgin  which  it  is  said 
once  saved  the  life  of  Stradella.  "  How  beautiful  it  is !" 
he  exclaimed.  "  My  God,  how  beautiful ! — Again,  again !" 
In  another  moment  he  swooned  away. 

On  the  17th  of  October,  1849,  having  entered  upon  his 
fortieth  year,  Chopin  breathed  his  last  in  the  arms  of  his 
devoted  pupil,  M.  Gutman.  Many  of  his  intimate  friends 
came  to  see  him.  His  love  of  flowers  was  well  known,  and 
the  next  day  they  were  brought  in  such  quantities  that 
the  bed  on  which  he  lay,  and,  indeed,  the  whole  room, 
disappeared  beneath  a  variegated  covering  of  a  thousand 
bright  tints.  The  pale  face  seemed  to  have  regained  in 
death  all  its  early  beauty !  there  was  no  more  unrest — no 
signs  of  care — he  lay  sleeping  tranquilly  among  the  flow- 
ers. 

On  the  30th  day  of  October  his  requiem  was  sung  at 
the  Madeleine  Church  in  Paris,  Signor  Lablache,  Madame 
Viardot,  and  Madame  Castellan  claiming  the  principal  so- 
los, and  M.  Wely  presiding  at  the  organ.  He  lies  in  the 
cemetery  of  Pere  la  Chaise,  between  Cherubini  and  Bel- 
lini 


ms  COMPOSITIONS.  261 

Chopin  was  essentially  a  national  musician.  Although 
us.  he  lived  much  in  France,  his  music  is  never 
8itfonB.mp *~  French.  "He  sings  to  one  clear  harp  in  divers 
tones,"  the  swan-song  of  his  people's  nationality.  His  ge- 
nius was  elegiac.  He  is  more  often  tender  than  strong, 
and  even  his  occasional  bursts  of  vigor  soon  give  way  to 
the  prevailing  undertone  of  a  deep  melancholy.  His  coun- 
try is  ever  uppermost  in  his  thoughts.  His  Polonaises  re- 
flect the  national  ardor  of  a  noble  but  unhappy  patriotism. 
His  mazourkas  and  scherzos  are  full  of  the  subtle  coquetry 
and  passionate  sensibility  of  his  gifted  countrywomen, 
while  his  ballads*  are  nothing  but  the  free,  wild  songs  of 
his  native  land,  transcribed  for  the  first  time  by  himself 

He,  first  of  all  musicians,  understood  the  dignity  of 
manners  and  the  language  of  deportment,  and  with  varied 
utterance  he  seems  to  be  continually  reminding  us  that 
"Manners  are  not  idle,  but  the  fruit 
Of  noble  nature  and  of  loyal  mind." 

His  dance  music  has  added  a  strange  and  fascinating 
solemnity  to  the  graces  of  the  ballroom,  elevating  a  mere 
pastime  into  what  may  almost  be  called  a  philosophy. 

As  a  romance  writer  for  the  piano-forte  he  had  no  models 
and  will  have  no  rivals.  He  was  original  without  extrava- 
gance, and  polished  without  affectation.  It  is  to  him  we 
owe  the  extension  of  chords  struck  together  in  arpeggio 
the  little  groups  of  superadded  notes  "falling  like  light 
drops  of  pearly  dew  upon  the  melodic  figure ;"  he  also  in- 
vented those  admirable  harmonic  progressions  which  lend 
importance  to  many  a  slender  subject,  and  redeem  its 
slightest  efforts  from  triviality.  Of  Schubert  he  once  re- 
marked that  "  the  sublime  is  desecrated  when  followed  by 

*  There  are  sixteen  (the  "  Ringlein")  published.     They  are  very  little 
known.     No.  12,  "My  Joy,"  and  10,  "Riding  Home  from  ths  Fight, 
are  quite  remarkable. 


262  CHOPIN 

the  trivial  or  commonplace."  A  certain  rollicking  fun,  and 
vulgar  though  powerful  energy,  that  frequently  peeps  out 
in  Schubert's  marches,  was  abhorrent  to  him.  Perhaps  he 
hardly  appreciated  the  enormous  range  of  men  like  Beet- 
hoven or  even  Schubert.  His  own  range  was  limited,  but 
within  it  he  has  probably  never  been  equaled  in  absolute 
perfection  of  finish.  His  works  are  marked  by  a  complete 
absence  of  commonplace,  and  you  will  search  throughout 
them  in  vain  for  a  slovenly  chord  or  an  unskillful  combina- 
tion. His  boldness  is  always  justified  by  success,  and  his 
repetition  by  a  certain  weird  and  singular  pathos. 

He  was  great  in  small  things,  but  small  in  great  ones. 
His  two  concertos  with  orchestral  accompaniments  are 
more  ambitious  than  successful.  The  other  instruments, 
like  the  general  public  (thin  as  are  his  orchestral  scores), 
seem  to  stifle  and  embarrass  him,  and  we  long  to  have 
Chopin  alone  again  at  the  piano-forte. 

Thus  much  in  general.  Volumes  more  might  doubtless 
be  written  about  these  men  and  their  music,  but  they  had 
better  be  left  to  speak  for  themselves  to  the  listening  ear 
and  the  loving  heart.  We  lay  down  the  pen  of  the  critic 
— we  look  up  once  more  at  the  familiar  features  of  FRANZ 
SCHUBERT  and  FREDERICK  CHOPIN.  They  have  long  been 
to  us  a  running  commentary  upon  all  nature,  and  the  gen- 
tle companions  of  our  solitude ;  May  never  comes  with  its 
glittering  freshness  and  myriad  bloom  but  the  songs  of 
Schubert  are  ringing  in  our  ears,  nor  June  with  its  glow- 
ing tints  and  tender  twilights  but  the  melodies  of  Chopin 
aeem  to  haunt  the  air. 

"  For  the  stars  and  the  winds  are  unto  them 
As  raiment,  as  songs  of  the  harp-player ; 
For  the  risen  stars  and  the  fallen  cling  to  them, 
And  the  southwest  wind  and  the  west  wind  sing!" 


THE  LETTERS  OF 

M   0   Z   A   K  T 


VIL 

A  GROUP  of  musical  biographies  without  two  such  cen- 
tral figures  as  Mozart  and  Beethoven  is  like  a  collection  of 
the  British  poets  without  Shakspeare  and  Milton ;  but  we 
must  remind  our  readers  that,  in  this  book,  there  is  a  third 
great  name  that  has  only  been  mentioned  incidentally,  the 
name  of  Sebastien  Bach,  while  an  illustrious  group  of  nine- 
teenth-century composers  in  France,  Italy,  and  Germany 
have  not  been  touched. 

Mozart  and  Beethoven  may  be  hereafter  treated  in  two 
120.       separate  volumes.    The  position  of  Sebastien  Bach 

Omissions 

explained,  would,  according  to  our  method,  be  most  aptly 
considered  whenever  a  detailed  biography  of  Mendelssohn 
comes  to  be  written.  The  modern  Italian  and  French 


264  MOZART. 

schools  may  also  form  an  interesting  subject  for  future 
consideration,  while  the  germs  of  musical  art  in  England 
should  not  be  regarded  as  hopeless  or  trivial. 

The  present  volume  should  be  taken,  not  as  a  complete 
survey  of  musical  art,  but  merely  as  a  serious  tribute  to 
its  importance  combined  with  a  group  of  biographies  sug- 
gestive of  a  few  great  landmarks  in  the  rise  and  develop- 
ment of  modern  music. 

I  have  felt  it  impossible  to  close  this  second  book  with- 
out trying  to  give  the  reader  a  passing  glimpse  of  Mozart, 
Beethoven,  and  Mendelssohn.  The  study  on  Elijah  will 
I  trust,  not  be  considered  de  trap. 

To  open  Mozart's  letters  is  like  opening  a  painted  tomb. 

121.         We  are  surrounded  by  people  long  dead — we 

vivid  Letters.  rea(j  tne  once  famiiiar  names,  forgotten  now — 

we  look  curiously  at  the  busy  every-day  life  of  a  century 
ago — we  almost  catch  the  ringing  laugh  and  the  sound  of 
voices.  The  colors  are  all  fresh,  the  figures  are  all  distinct. 
Let  us  select  one  group.  There  is  Leopold  Mozart,  the 
father,  with  his  old  threadbare  coat  and  oaken  stick,  a  God- 
fearing, sensible,  but  somewhat  narrow-minded  man ;  his 
wife — the  very  model  of  a  thrifty  housewife.  There  is 
pretty  little  Nannerl,  now  about  fifteen,  who  "  looks  like 
an  angel  in  her  new  clothes,"  and  plays  the  clavier  to  the 
astonishment  of  Herr  von  Molk,  the  stupid  lover,  and  the 
other  court  musicians  who  frequent  the  worthy  Capell- 
meister's  house  at  Salzburg.  There  is  Bimberl  the  dog, 
who  gets  so  many  kisses,  and  the  canary  that  sings  in  G 
sharp ;  and,  last,  there  is  the  glorious  boy  Wolfgang  Ama- 
deus  Mozart,  now  about  thirteen,  in  his  little  puce-brown 
coat,  velvet  hose,  and  buckled  shoes,  and  long,  flowing 
curly  hair,  tied  behind  after  the  fashion  of  the  day.  He 
has  already  visited  Paris,  London,  and  Home,  and  is  no  less 


VIVID  LETTERS.  265 

famous  for  uproarious  merriment  than  for  music.  At  the 
age  of  four  he  wrote  tunes,  at  twelve  he  could  not  find  his 
equal  on  the  harpsichord,  and  the  professors  of  Europe 
stood  aghast  at  one  who  improvised  fugues  on  a  given 
theme,  and  then  took  a  ride  a  cock-horse  on  his  father's 
stick. 

The  first  two  sections  of  Letters,  which  carry  us  up  to 
his  twenty-second  year,  reach  from  1769  to  1778,  and  are 
dated  variously  from  Verona,  Milan,  Rome,  Bologna,  and 
Venice.  We  have  also  an  account  of  a  professional  tour 
in  Germany  with  his  mother,  in  the  fruitless  search  after 
some  settled  employment.  He  seems  to  have  met  with 
many  friends,  much  praise,  some  jealousy,  but  so  little 
money  that  he  charged  only  four  ducats  for  twelve  lessons, 
and  could  write  to  Martini,  the  old  Italian  Nestor  of  mu- 
sic, "  We  live  in  a  country  where  music  has  very  little  suc- 
cess." Meanwhile  he  has  excellent  spirits,  and  laughs  at 
every  thing  and  every  body — at  the  ascetic  friar,  who  ate 
so  enormously — at  Nannerl's  lover,  poor  Herr  von  Molk, 
whimpering  behind  his  pocket-handkerchief— at  the  violin 
professor,  who  was  always  saying, "I beg  your  pardon, but 
I  am  out  again,"  and  was  always  consoled  by  Mozart's  in- 
variable reply,  "  It  doesn't  in  the  least  signify" — at  the 
Italian  singer  who  had  "  una  rugged  voce  e  canta  sempre 
about  a  quarter  of  a  note  too  hardi  o  troppo  o  buon  ora  /" 
Contrasted  with  these  lighter  moods,  it  is  striking  to  ob- 
serve a  deep  undertone  of  seriousness,  as  when  he  assures 
his  father  of  his  regularity  at  confession,  and  exclaims, "  I 
have  always  had  God  before  my  eyes.  Friends  who  have 
no  religion  can  not  long  be  my  friends ;"  "  I  have  such  a 
sense  of  religion  that  I  shall  never  do  any  thing  that  I 
would  not  do  before  the  whole  world :"  and  we  recognize 
the  loving,  unspoiled  heart  of  a  boy  in  the  young  man's 
words,  "Next  to  God  comes  papa."  This  period  was 


266  MOZART. 

marked  by  the  composition  of  the  greater  number  of  hit 
masses,  most  of  which  were  written  before  his  twenty- 
third  year. 

The  year  1778  and  1779,  which  he  spent  in  Paris,  were 
129.         probably  the  most  uncongenial  of  his  life.     He 

Paris, Vienna,    £  / 

and  Love.  found  the  people  coarse  and  intriguing,  the  mu- 
sicians stupid  and  intractable,  the  nobles  poor  and  stingy, 
the  women  unconversable  and  dissolute.  The  whole  tone 
of  the  French  mind  displeased  him.  "  The  ungodly  arch- 
villain  Voltaire  has  died  like  a  dog,"  he  writes.  But  upon 
the  French  music  he  pours  all  the  vials  of  his  wrath. 
"  The  French  are,  and  always  will  be,  downright  donkeys." 
"They  can  not  sing — they  scream."  "The  devil  himself 
invented  their  language."  In  1779  he  came  back  to  Ger- 
many, resolved  to  abandon  forever  both  the  French  and 
Italian  styles,  and  devote  himself  to  the  cultivation  of  a 
real  German  opera  school.  The  Idomeneo  was  the  first- 
fruits.  It  was  produced  at  Munich  for  the  Carnival  of 
1780 — a  date  forever  memorable  in  the  annals  of  music  as 
the  dawn  of  the  great  classical  period  in  Mozart's  history. 
From  1781  to  1782,  all  his  letters  are  dated  from  Vien- 
na, where  he  finally  settled  down.  Money  is  still  scarce. 
"  I  have  only  one  small  room,"  he  writes :  "  it  is  quite 
crammed  with  a  piano,  a  table,  a  bed,  and  a  chest  of  draw- 
ers ;"  but,  combined  with  his  almost  austere  poverty,  we 
notice  the  same  regularity  in  his  religious  duties,  the  same 
purity  in  his  private  life ;  of  this,  such  letters  as  vol.  ii., 
No.  180-182,  afford  the  strongest  circumstantial  evidence. 
In  1781,  his  reasons  for  marrying,  though  quaintly  put,  are 
quite  unanswerable — viz.,  because  he  had  no  one  to  take 
care  of  his  linen ;  because  he  could  not  live  like  the  disso- 
lute young  men  around  him ;  and,  lastly,  because  he  was 
in  love  with  Constance  Weber.  The  marriage  took  place 


HAYDN.  267 

in  1782,  Mozart  being  then  twenty-six,  and  his  bride  eight- 
een. The  same  year  witnessed  the  production  of  II  Se- 
raglio, and  shortly  afterward  we  find  him  dining  pleasant- 
ly with  the  veteran  composer  Gluck,  who,  although  of 
quite  another  school,  and  in  some  sense  a  rival,  was  always 
cordial  in  his  praises  of  Mozart.  So  thoroughly,  indeed, 
had  the  spirit  of  the  new  music  begun  to  revolutionize  the 
public  mind,  that  popular  Italian  composers  engaged  Mo- 
zart to  write  arias  for  them,  in  order  to  insure  the  success 
of  their  operas. 

The  rest  of  Mozart's  life  can  be  compared  to  nothing 
m  but  a  torch  burning  out  rapidly  in  the  wind.  Un- 
Haydn<  wearied  alike  as  a  composer  and  an  artist,  he  kept 
pouring  forth  symphonies,  sonatas,  and  operas,  while  dis- 
ease could  not  shake  his  nerve  as  an  executant,  and  the 
hand  of  death  found  him  unwilling  to  relinquish  the  pen 
of  the  ready  writer.  In  April,  1783,  we  find  him  playing 
at  no  less  than  twenty  concerts.  The  year  1 785  is  marked 
by  the  six  celebrated  quartets  dedicated  to  Haydn.  "  I  de- 
clare to  you,"  exclaimed  the  old  man,  upon  hearing  them, 
to  Mozart's  father, "  before  God  and  on  the  faith  of  an  hon- 
est man,  that  your  son  is  the  greatest  composer  who  .ever 
lived."  In  1786  Figaro  was  produced;  and  in  1787  Don 
Giovanni  was  written  for  his  favorite  public  at  Prague. 
It  will  hardly  be  believed  that  all  this  time  Mozart  was  in 
the  greatest  want  of  money.  His  works  were  miserably 
paid  for.  He  visited  Berlin,  Dresden,  and  Leipzic  to  re- 
cruit his  fortunes :  the  nobles  gave  him  watches  and  snuff- 
boxes, but  very  little  coin ;  and  in  1790  we  find  Mozart,  at 
the  zenith  and  fame  of  his  popularity,  standing  dinnerless 
and  "in  a  state  of  destitution"  at  the  door  of  his  old  friend 
Puchberg.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  this,  as  he  cer- 
tainly made  more  money  than  many  musicians.  His  purse, 


268  MOZART. 

indeed,  was  always  open  to  his  friends ;  he  was  obliged  to 
mix  on  equal  terms  with  his  superiors  in  rank ;  he  had  an 
invalid  wife,  for  whom  he  procured  every  comfort.  There 
must,  indeed,  have  been  bad  management,  but  we  can 
scarcely  read  his  letters  and  accuse  him  of  wanton  extrav- 
agance. 

In  1791  he  entered  upon  his  thirty-sixth  and  last  year. 

124.  Into  it,  among  other  works,  were  crowded  La 
and  Death.  Ckmenza  di  Tito,  II  Flauto  Magico,  and  the  Re- 
quiem. His  friends  looked  upon  his  wondrous  career,  as 
we  have  since  looked  upon  Mendelssohn's,  with  a  certain 
sad  and  bewildered  astonishment.  That  prodigious  child- 
hood— that  spring  mellow  with  all  the  fruits  of  autumn — 
that  startling  haste  "  as  the  rapid  of  life  shoots  to  the  fall" 
— we  understand  it  now.  "The  world  had  waited  eight 
centuries  for  him,  and  he  was  only  to  remain  for  a  mo- 
ment" (Oulibichejf).  In  the  October  of  1791  he  closes  a 
letter  to  his  wife  with  the  words  from  Zauberflote^ "  The 
hour  strikes.  Farewell !  we  shall  meet  again !"  These  are 
the  last  written  words  of  Mozart  extant. 

His  wife  returned  from  Baden  somewhat  invigorated  by 
the  waters,  but  she  noticed  with  alarm  a  pallor  more  fatal 
than  her  own  upon  her  husband's  face.  His  passionate 
love  for  her  never  waned,  but  he  had  grown  silent  and 
melancholy.  He  would  constantly  remain  writing  at  the 
Requiem  long  after  his  dinner-hour.  Neither  fatigue  nor 
hunger  seemed  to  rouse  him  from  his  profound  contempla- 
tion. At  night  he  would  sit  brooding  over  the  score  until 
he  not  unfrequently  swooned  away  in  his  chair.  The  mys- 
terious apparition  of  the  stranger  in  black,  who  came  to 
Mozart  and  gave  the  order  for  the  Requiem,  has  been  re- 
solved into  the  valet  of  a  nobleman  who  wished  to  pre- 
serve his  incognito,  but  it  doubtless  added  to  the  sombre 


A  CTIVIT  T  AND  DEA  TH.  269 

melancholy  of  a  mind  already  sinking  and  overwrought. 
One  mild  autumn  morning  his  wife  drove  him  out  in  an 
open  carriage  to  some  neighboring  woods.  As  he  breathed 
the  soft  air,  scented  with  the  yellow  leaves  that  lay  thickly 
strewn  around,  he  discovered  to  her  the  secret  of  the  Re- 
quiem. "  I  am  writing  it,"  he  said, "  for  myself."  A  few 
days  of  flattering  hope  followed,  and  then  Mozart  was  car- 
ried to  the  bed  from  which  he  was  never  destined  to  rise. 
Vienna  was  at  that  time  ringing  with  the  fame  of  his  last 
opera.  They  brought  him  the  rich  appointment  of  organ- 
ist to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Stephen,  for  which  he  had  been 
longing  all  his  life.  Managers  besieged  his  door  with  hand- 
fuls  of  gold,  summoning  him  to  compose  something  for 
them — too  late !  He  lay,  with  swollen  limbs  and  burning 
head,  awaiting  another  summons.  On  the  night  of  Decem- 
ber 5, 1791,  his  wife,  her  sister,  Sophie  Weber,  and  his  friend 
Susmeyer,  were  with  him.  The  score  of  the  Requiem  lay 
open  upon  his  bed.  As  the  last  faintness  stole  over  him, 
he  turned  to  Susmeyer — his  lips  moved  feebly — he  was 
trying  to  indicate  a  peculiar  effect  of  kettle-drums  in  the 
score.  It  was  the  last  act  of  expiring  thought ;  his  head 
sank  gently  back ;  he  seemed  to  fall  into  a  deep  and  tran- 
quil sleep.  In  another  hour  he  had  ceased  to  breathe. 

On  a  stormy  December  morning,  through  the  deserted 
streets  of  Vienna,  amid  snow  and  hail,  and  unaccompanied 
by  a  single  friend,  the  body  of  Mozart  was  hastily  borne, 
with  fifteen  others,  to  the  common  burial-ground  of  the 
poor.  In  1808,  some  foreigners,  passing  through  the  town, 
wished  to  visit  the  grave;  but  they  were  told  that  the 
ashes  of  the  poor  were  frequently  exhumed  to  make  room 
for  others,  and  no  stone  then  remained  to  mark  the  spot 
where  once  had  rested  the  body  of  JOHANN  CHRTSOSTOM 
WOLFGANG  AMADEUS  MOZAET. 

These  letters  in  great  measure  supply  the  want  of  mate- 


270  MOZART. 

rial  noticeable  in  every  biography  of  Mozart  between  the 
years  1785-90,  and  are  further  valuable  as  correcting  sev- 
eral hasty  and  ill-advised  statements  in  the  otherwise 
learned  and  elaborate  narrative  of  M.  Oulibicheff,  such  as, 
that  Mozart  had  a  passion  for  traveling,  when  he  declares 
that  he  could  never  sleep  in  his  carriage,  and  hated  being 
from  home — or  that  he  was  fond  of  wine  and  women,  when 
throughout  his  life  he  was  scoffed  at  for  being  chaste  and 
sober — or  that  he  was  extravagant,  when  he  continually 
sent  large  sums  to  his  father,  wore  the  coarsest  linen,  and 
devoted  every  thing  else  to  the  comfort  of  an  invalid  wife 
— or  that  his  talents  were  not  recognized  at  Vienna,  where 
many  of  his  most  successful  concerts  were  given — or  that 
Figaro  was  received  coldly  there,  when  he  writes, "  There 
were  seven  encores." 

The  following  passages  will  be  perused  with  interest,  as 
specimens  of  Mozart's  style  of  letter-writing. 

On  a  January  in  1 778,  from  Paris  to  Strasburg,  he  writes: 

"I  submitted  to  this  conveyance  for  eight  days,  but  longer  I  could  not 
stand  it — not  on  account  of  the  fatigue,  for  the  carriage  was  well  hung,  but 
from  want  of  sleep.  We  were  off  every  morning  at  four  o'clock,  and  thus 
obliged  to  rise  at  three.  Twice  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  being  forced  to 
get  up  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  as  we  were  to  set  off  at  two.  You 
know  that  I  can  not  sleep  in  a  carriage,  so  I  really  could  not  continue  this 
without  the  risk  of  being  ill.  I  would  have  taken  the  post,  but  it  was  not 
necessary,  for  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with  a  person  who  quite 
suited  me — a  German  merchant  who  resides  in  Paris  and  deals  in  English 
wares.  Before  getting  into  the  carnage  we  exchanged  a  few  words,  and 
from  that  moment  we  remained  together.  We  did  not  take  our  meals  with 
the  other  passengers,  but  in  our  own  room,  where  we  also  slept.  I  wai 
glad  to  meet  this  man,  for,  being  a  great  traveler,  he  understands  it  well." 

The  following  passage  may  be  safely  commended  to  per- 
sons about  to  marry.  Mozart  writes  to  the  reluctant  par- 
ent of  the  period ;  it  is  the  old  story.  Papa  thinks  it  un- 
wise to  marry  without  means,  and  again  it  is  the  old  story 
—son  of  a  contrary  opinion : 


ACTIVITY  AND  DEATH.  271 

"  Yon  car.  have  no  possible  objection  to  offer,  nor  can  there  be  any,  and 
this  you  admit  in  your  letters.  Constanze  is  a  well-conducted,  good  girl, 
of  respectable  parentage,  and  I  am  in  a  position  to  earn  at  least  daily  bread 
for  her.  We  love  each  other,  and  we  are  resolved  to  marry.  All  that  you 
have  written,  or  may  possibly  write,  on  this  subject,  can  be  nothing  but 
well-meant  advice,  which,  however  good  and  sensible,  can  no  longer  apply 
to  a  man  who  has  gone  so  far  with  a  girl.  There  can,  therefore,  be  no 
question  of  further  delay.  Honesty  is  the  best  policy,  and  can  not  fail  to 
insure  the  blessing  of  Providence.  I  am  resolved  to  have  no  cause  for 
self-reproach.  Now  farewell!" 

Just  after  the  wedding  he  writes : 

"  My  darling  is  now  a  hundred  times  more  joyful  at  the  idea  of  going 
to  Salzburg,  and  I  am  willing  to  stake — ay,  my  very  life,  that  you  will  re- 
joice still  more  in  my  happiness  when  you  know  her ;  if,  indeed,  in  your 
estimation,  as  in  mine,  a  high-principled,  honest,  virtuous,  and  pleasing 
wife  ought  to  make  a  man  happy. " 

Late  in  his  short  life  he  writes  the  following  character- 
istic note  to  a  friend,  whose  life  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  regular : 

"  Now  tell  me,  my  dear  friend,  how  you  are.  I  hope  you  are  all  as  well 
as  we  are.  You  can  not  fail  to  be  happy,  for  you  possess  every  thing  that 
you  can  wish  for  at  your  age  and  in  your  position,  especially  as  you  now 
seem  to  have  entirely  given  up  your  former  mode  of  life.  Do  you  not 
every  day  become  more  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  little  lectures  I  used 
to  inflict  on  you  ?  Are  not  the  pleasures  of  a  transient,  capricious  passion 
widely  different  from  the  happiness  produced  by  rational  and  true  love  ?  I 
feel  sure  that  you  often  in  your  heart  thank  me  for  my  admonitions.  I 
shall  feel  quite  proud  if  you  do.  But,  jesting  apart,  you  do  really  owe  me 

some  little  gratitude  if  you  are  become  worthy  of  Fraulein  N ,  for  I 

certainly  played  no  insignificant  part  in  your  improvement  or  reform. 

"  My  great-grandfather  used  to  say  to  his  wife,  my  great-grandmother, 
who  in  turn  told  it  to  her  daughter,  my  mother,  who  repeated  it  to  her 
daughter,  my  own  sister,  that  it  was  a  very  great  art  to  talk  eloquently 
and  well,  but  an  equally  great  one  to  know  the  right  moment  to  stop.  I 
therefore  shall  follow  the  advice  of  my  sister,  thanks  to  our  mother,  grand- 
mother, and  great-grandmother,  and  thus  end,  not  only  my  moral  ebulli- 
tion, but  my  letter." 


THE  LETTERS  OF 

BEETHOVEN. 

Born  1770-2,  Died  1827. 


vin. 

THE  person  of  Beethoven,  like  his  music,  seems  to  have 
128  left  its  vivid  and  colossal  impress  upon  the  age. 
Appearance.  « rpne  Square  Cyclopean  figure,  attired  in  a  shab- 
by coat,  with  torn  sleeves,"  described  by  Weber,  is  familiar 
to  all,  and  the  face  too — the  rough  hair  brushed  impatient- 
ly off  the  forehead,  the  boldly  arched  eyebrows,  resolute 
nose,  and  firmly  set  mouth — truly  a  noble  face,  with  a  cer- 


CHILDHO OD  AND  ONL  T  LO  VES.  273 

tain  severe  integrity,  and  passionate  power,  and  lofty  sad- 
ness about  it,  seeming,  in  its  elevation  and  wideness  of  ex- 
pression, to  claim  kindred  with  a  world  of  ideas  out  of  all 
proportion  to  our  own.  The  face  at  the  beginning  of  vol. 
i.  of  Beethoven's  published  letters  is  better  than  any  thing 
in  the  book. 

We  open  these  letters  with  the  greatest  eagerness ;  we 
close  them  with  a  feeling  of  almost  unmingled  pain  and 
disappointment.  Unlike  Mozart's,  they  are  not  a  spark- 
ling commentary  on  a  many-colored  life.  Beethoven's  out- 
ward life  was  all  one  color,  and  his  letters  are  mainly  oc- 
cupied with  unimportant,  vexatious,  or  melancholy  details. 
His  inward  life  has  long  since  been  given  to  the  world,  but 
not  in  words,  only  in 

"  The  tides  of  music's  golden  sea, 
Setting  toward  eternity." 

Born  in  1770  or  1772,*  Ludwig  van  Beethoven  early 
126.         showed  a  strong  dislike  to  music.     His  father 

Childhood  and 

only  Loves.  had  to  beat  him  before  he  would  sit  down  at 
the  piano.  At  the  age  of  eleven,  however,  he  declares  that 
for  several  years  music  had  been  his  favorite  pursuit.  His 
compositions  were  always  abundant,  and  from  the  first  met 
with  the  approval  of  the  publishers.  His  early  composi- 
tions were  at  once  understood.  And  no  wonder,  for  in  him 
the  bereaved  public  found  Mozart  redivivus  with  varia- 
tions. "  Mind,  you  will  hear  that  boy  talked  of!"  whis- 
pered the  great  composer  when  he  first  heard  Beethoven 
play.  Did  he  foresee  with  what  firm  and  gigantic  strides 
the  "  boy,"  as  he  entered  manhood,  would  lead  the  way  to 
fresh  woods  and  pastures  new  ?  ever  triumphant  and  suc- 
cessful— amid  what  trials  and  disasters  ! 

On  the  very  threshold  of  his  career  he  was  met  by  two 
*  See  F£tis,  "Biographic  Universelle  des  Musicieus,"  art.  "Beethoven. " 
18 


274  BEETHOVEN. 

gloomy  companions — Poverty  and  Disease — who  acompa- 
nied  him  to  the  grave.  In  1800  he  lost  his  patron,  the 
Elector  of  Cologne,  and  with  him  a  small  salary,  and  in 
1801  he  became  partially  deaf.  Both  evils  were  lightened 
by  success ;  but  what  is  success  without  health  or  spirits  ? 
"Oh, blissful  moment!  how  happy  do  I  esteem  myself!" 
and  in  the  same  letter, "  I  can  not  fail  to  be  the  most  un- 
happy of  God's  creatures  !"  About  this  time  occur  those 
strange  letters  to  his  "  immortal  beloved,"  the  Countess 
Giulietta  Guicciardi ;  and  in  the  still  more  immortal  song 
of  "Adelaide,"  written  then,  we  can  almost  hear  the  refrain 
of  "My  angel!  my  all!  my  life!"  (15),  and  such-like  pas- 
sionate utterances.  The  countess  married  some  one  else, 
and  Beethoven  does  not  seem  to  have  broken  his  heart. 
His  relations  with  women  were  always  severely  honorable. 
This  is  the  only  burst  of  love  he  ever  permitted  himself, 
and  if  we  except  his  unhappy  love  for  Marie  Pachler,  and 
the  wild  fancy  which  that  strange  little  being,  Bettina  Bren- 
tano,  seems  to  have  inspired  in  Goethe,  Beethoven,  and  ev- 
ery one  who  came  near  her,  we  must  suppose  that  the  myth 
of  Platonic  affection  became  for  once  real  history.  He  was 
not,  however,  at  all  insensible  to  the  charms  of  female  so- 
ciety. The  ladies  might  knit  him  comforters,  make  him 
light  puddings,  he  would  even  condescend  to  lie  on  their 
sofas  after  dinner,  and  pick  his  teeth  with  the  snuffers, 
while  they  played  his  sonatas.  Madame  Breuning  and 
Frau  Von  Streicher  especially  seem  to  have  been  inval- 
uable friends  and  advisers.  He  told  them  all  his  petty 
troubles:  "Nany  is  not  strictly  honest;"  "I have  a  cough 
and  severe  headache."  Then  follow  details  about  servants' 
clothes  and  wages.  If,  however,  his  relations  with  women 
were  unromantic,  they  were  proportionably  constant.  His 
correspondence  was  limited  in  range,  but  the  same  names, 
both  male  and  female,  recur  to  the  end  of  his  life.  This 


DEAFNESS.  275 

fact  speaks  volumes.    It  is  more  to  retain  than  to  win.    The 
head  may  win ;  the  heart  alone  can  keep. 

Walking  one  day  in  the  woods  with  his  devoted  friend, 
12T  Ferdinand  Ries,  he  disclosed  to  him  the  sad  secret 
Deafness.  Qf  njs  increa8ing  deafness :  this  was  as  early  as 
1 800.  From  this  time  his  patience  and  money  were  vainly 
lavished  on  doctors  without  success.  The  world  of  sweet 
sounds  and  pleasant  voices  were  gradually  closing  up  for 
him.  "  I  wander  about  here  with  music-paper  among  the 
hills,  and  dales,  and  valleys,  and  scribble  a  great  deal.  No 
man  on  earth  can  love  the  country  as  I  do."  But  he  could 
not  hear  the  birds  sing.  No  one  was  naturally  a  more  in- 
telligent converser,  but  he  could  hardly  hear  the  voices  of 
his  friends.  Early  in  life  he  writes, "  I  must  tell  you  my 
extraordinary  deafness  is  such  that  in  the  theatre  I  am 
obliged  to  lean  close  up  against  the  orchestra ;  a  little  way 
off,  I  lose  the  high  notes  of  both  instruments  and  singers ;" 
and  latterly  no  sound  from  the  thunder  of  a  full  orchestra, 
while  he  stood  in  the  midst  of  it  with  his  back  to  the  au- 
dience, could  reach  him.  They  used  to  turn  him  round  at 
the  end  of  his  symphonies  that  he  might  see  the  enthusi- 
asm which  his  music  had  created.  Thus,  in  1802,  he  bids 
farewell  to  his  hearing  in  one  of  those  bitter  heart-cries 
which  remind  us  of  that  other  immortal  plaint, 

"  When  I  consider  how  my  life  is  spent, 
Ere  half  my  days  in  this  dark  world  and  wide : " 

"As  autumn  leaves  fall  and  wither,  so  are  my  hopes  blighted.  Almost 
as  I  came  I  depart.  Even  the  lofty  courage  which  so  often  animated  me 
in  the  lovely  days  of  summer  is  gone  forever.  Oh,  Providence !  vouch- 
safe me  one  day  of  pure  felicity !  How  long  have  I  been  estranged  from 
the  glad  echo  of  true  joy !  When,  O  my  God !  when  shall  I  feel  it  again 
in  the  temple  of  nature  and  man  ? — never !" 

When  we  hear  it  recorded  of  Beethoven  that  he  was  a 


276  BEETHOVEN. 

morose,  churlish,  and  ill-tempered  man, "  full  of  caprice,  and 
devoid  of  all  complaisance,"  let  us  rather  remember  one 
who,  in  the  midst  of  sufferings  which  we  can  not  estimate, 
and  trials  which  we  have  not  known,  never  lost  his  rever- 
ence for  God,  his  deep  and  tender  devotion  to  all  that  was 
highest  in  man,  his  patient  forbearance  with  the  weak  and 
selfish,  and  a  certain  indomitable  courage,  wideness  of  vis- 
ion, and  power  of  will,  which  has  raised  him,  the  lonely 
worker,  to  one  of  the  most  solitary  pinnacles  of  Fame. 

The  years  from  1805  to  1808  witnessed  the  production 
of  "The  Mount  of  Olives,"  "Leonora,"  "Pastorale,"  and 
"  Eroica,"  besides  a  host  of  minor  concertos,  songs,  and 
sonatas.  In  1809,  his  affectionate  patron,  the  Archduke 
Rudolf,  settled  a  small  pension  on  him  for  life,  and  hence- 
forth Beethoven  hardly  ever  moved  from  Vienna,  except  to 
go  to  Baden  in  the  summer  months. 

In  1816  he  writes  in  better  spirits  to  his  comical  friend 
128        Zmeskall,"  For  the  sake  of  various  scamps  in  this 
youig  Raa-  world  I  should  like  to  live  a  little  longer."    His 
caL  general  health  had  improved,  a  new  and  sudden 

interest  in  life  had  come  to  him  with  the  guardianship  of 
his  nephew  Carl,  who,  upon  his  father's  death,  was  res- 
cued by  his  uncle  from  the  dutches  of  a  most  abandoned 
mother. 

His  love  for  this  young  rascal  is  the  most  affecting  thing 
in  his  whole  life.  He  put  him  to  school — had  him  home 
for  the  holidays — gave  him  every  indulgence,  and  lavished 
upon  him  all  the  love  which  was  never  destined  to  flow 
through  happier  channels.  He  had  a  natural  horror  of 
business  and  detail,  but  nothing  could  be  small  or  vexa- 
tious which  concerned  Carl.  The  size  of  his  boots — the 
cut  of  his  coat — his  physic — his  food — and,  above  all,  his 
piano-forte  playing,  were  subjects  of  unfailing  interest  to 


CAJRL,  THE  YOUNG  RASCAL.  277 

Beethoven.  By  the  way,  here  is  a  valuable  hint  to  teach- 
ers, from  the  great  master  to  the  pianist  Czerny :  "  When 
sufficiently  advanced,  do  not  stop  his  (Carl's)  playing  on 
account  of  little  mistakes,  but  only  point  them  out  at  the 
end  of  the  piece.  I  have  always  followed  this  system, 
which  quickly  forms  a  musician"  But,  unfortunately,  Carl 
was  not  a  musician,  but  an  idle  fellow  who  cared  for  noth- 
ing but  pleasure,  and  nobody  but  himself.  It  was  the  last 
bitter  drop  in  the  poor  uncle's  cup — a  drop  which  he  re- 
fused to  taste  until  his  hair  began  to  get  gray — that  he, 
who  had  been  father,  mother,  servant,  nurse,  every  thing 
to  Carl,  was  only  looked  upon  by  him  in  the  light  of  the 
"relieving  officer."  The  saddest  letters  are  those  from  435 
to  450,  addressed  to  this  miserable  nephew : 

"Dear  son,  I  still  feel  very  weak  and  solitary  —  my  weakness  often 
amounts  to  a  swoon.  Oh,  do  not  further  grieve  me !  Farewell,  dearest 
boy ;  deserve  this  name ;  any  thing  you  want  shall  be  purchased.  If  it  is 
too  hard  a  task  for  you  to  come  and  see  me,  give  it  up ;  but  if  you  can  by 
any  possibility  come,  etc.,  let  us  not  refer  to  the  past.  If  you  had  any 
depth  of  feeling  you  would  have  acted  differently.  Be  my  own  dear  pre- 
cious son !  imitate  my  virtues,  not  my  faults. " 

The  "  precious  son"  seems  to  have  met  all  this  affection 
with  coldness,  ingratitude,  and  the  meanest  lying.  At  last 
the  whole  truth  breaks  upon  the  unhappy  old  man,  and  he 
exclaims,  we  can  almost  fancy  with  tears, "  I  know  now 
you  have  no  pleasure  in  coming  to  see  me — which  is  only 
natural,  for  my  atmosphere  is  too  pure  for  you.  God  has 
never  yet  forsaken  me,  and  no  doubt  some  one  will  be 
found  to  close  my  eyes."  Carl,  after  attempting  suicide, 
gambling,  and  commerce,  and  failing  signally  in  each,  final- 
ly enlisted,  and  so  disappears  from  these  letters ;  but  we 
read  his  last  forgiveness  in  the  brief  codicil  of  Beethoven's 
will — "  I  appoint  my  nephew  Carl  my  sole  heir." 


278  BEETHOVEN. 

Beethoven's  external  life  presents  us  with  the  familiar 

129.          picture  of  the  man  of  genius  and  misfortune 
His  Generosity  r 

and  Poverty,  struggling  with  the  world.  '  Miser  sum  pau- 
per" he  would  often  say.  He  was  wretched,  because  deaf, 
and  solitary,  and  disappointed  in  the  deepest  and  most 
sensitive  parts  of  a  nature  singularly  tender  and  profound. 
He  was  poor  because  the  best  pay  in  those  days  was  bad, 
and  because  the  men  who  could  have  helped  him  hung 
back  until  the  life  that  might  have  been  prolonged  and 
cheered  by  their  kindly  support  was  closed  abruptly  with- 
out it.  George  IV.,  then  Prince  Regent,  never  acknowl- 
edged the  dedication  of  the  battle  symphony,  or  took  the 
slightest  notice  of  its  composer.  Neither  the  Imperial  fam- 
ily nor  the  Austrian  government  ever  showed  the  smallest 
interest  in  either  Haydn,  Mozart,  or  Beethoven.  They  left 
them  to  the  mercy  of  private  patrons.  Beethoven  was 
always  very  poor,  but  in  his  poverty  he  never  forgot  to  be 
generous.  At  a  concert  given  in  aid  of  the  soldiers  wound- 
ed at  Hanau,  he  supplied  music  and  conducted.  Schuppan- 
sigh,  Spohr,  and  Mayseder  were  among  the  violins,  and  old 
Salieri  played  the  drums  and  cymbals  (Meyerbeer,  Mos- 
cheles,  and  Hummel  also  assisted).  When  some  offer  of 
payment  was  made,  he  writes,  "  Say  Beethoven  never  ac- 
cepts any  thing  where  humanity  is  concerned" 

On  another  occasion,  when  the  concert  was  for  poor  Ur- 
suline  nuns — "  I  promise  you  an  entirely  new  symphony : 
my  joy  will  be  beyond  bounds  if  the  concert  prove  a  suc- 
cess." But  his  charity  was  not  merely  for  show — it  began 
at  home.  His  friends  never  applied  in  vain  for  money  as 
long  as  he  had  any  to  give,  and  his  purse-strings  were  often 
loosed  for  those  who  had  injured  him  deeply. 

Beethoven's  relations  with  his  London  publishers  were 
very  satisfactory.  The  Philharmonic  paid  liberally  for  his 
works,  honored  him  with  appreciation  during  his  life,  and 


HIS  RELIGION  AND  HIS  ART.  279 

sent  him  a  present  of  £100  when  he  was  lying  on  his  death- 
bed. 

Beethoven's  domestic  life  was  one  of  singular  discom- 
fort. He  was  always  changing  his  lodgings — getting  into 
worse  ones  and  falling  among  thieves.  He  no  sooner  got 
into  new  rooms  than  the  chimneys  began  to  smoke,  or  the 
rain  came  in  through  the  roof,  or  the  chairs  came  down 
when  sat  upon,  or  the  doors  came  off  their  hinges.  He 
was  no  more  fortunate  with  his  servants.  "  Nancy  is  too 
uneducated  for  a  housekeeper  —  indeed,  quite  a  beast." 
"  My  precious  servants  were  occupied  from  seven  o'clock 
till  ten  trying  to  heat  the  stove."  "  The  cook's  off  again." 
"  I  shied  half  a  dozen  books  at  her  head."  They  made  his 
dinner  so  nasty  that  he  could  not  eat  it.  "  No  soup  to-day, 
no  beef,  no  eggs  again — got  something  from  the  inn  at 
last." 

From  a  life  of  public  neglect,  and  private  suffering  and 
130.       trial,  he  turned  to  the  ideal  life  in  art.     In  all  his 

His  Religion 

and  his  Art  earthly  strivings  he  might  well  say  with  Goethe, 
"  I  have  ever  looked  up  to  the  highest."  To  him  art  was 
no  mere  recreation  or  luxury,  but  the  expression  of  all  that 
was  conceivable  and  most  worthy  of  being  expressed  in 
things  divine  and  human.  It  was  a  call,  a  mission,  an  in- 
spiration ;  and  the  ear  so  early  closed  to  the  discords  of 
earth  seemed  all  the  more  intently  open  to  the  voice  of  the 
informing  Spirit : 

"  Lo,  I  have  given  thee 
To  understand  my  presence  and  to  feel 
My  fullness  :  I  have  filled  thy  lips  with  power. 
I  have  raised  thee  nigher  to  the  spheres  of  heaven, 
Man's  first,  last  home ;  and  thou  with  ravished  sense 
Listenest  the  lordly  music  flowing  from 
Th'  illimitable  years." 

"  Nothing  can  be  more   sublime,"  he  writes, "  than  to 


280  BEETHOVEN. 

draw  nearer  to  the  Godhead  than  other  men,  and  to  dif- 
fuse here  on  earth  these  Godlike  rays  among  mortals."  But 
none  understood  better  than  he  that  "  the  excellency  of  the 
power  was  not  of  him :" 

"  What  is  all  this  compared  to  the  grandest  of  all  Mas- 
ters of  harmony — above,  above !"  And  so  this  mighty 
spirit  seemed  always  reaching  forward  with  the  glorious 
"not  as  though  I  had  attained"  forever  on  his  lips.  "I 
feel," he  writes  in  1824, "as  though  I  had  written  scarcely 
more  than  a  few  notes  of  music !"  for  to  him 

"  All  experience  seemed  an  arch,  wherethrough 
Gleamed  that  untravel'd  world  whose  margin  fadea 
Forever  and  forever  as  we  move." 

Beethoven  had  worked  too  hard.  In  1823  his  eyes  gave 
i3i.  wa7  5  f°r  several  years  before  his  death  he  had  been 
Death,  gpftting  blood,  and  his  digestion  was  nearly  gone. 
In  December  of  the  year  1826  he  found  himself  upon  a 
sick-bed,  in  great  poverty,  and  unable  to  compose  a  line 
of  music.  There  are  a  few  more  letters,  written  in  a  trem- 
ulous hand ;  others  only  signed  still  more  illegibly ;  letters 
to  Moscheles,  to  Sir  George  Smart,  and  to  Baron  Pasqua- 
lati,  an  old  friend,  who  sent  him  fruit,  wine,  and  other  del- 
icacies during  his  illness. 

On  the  18th  of  March,  1827,  all  hopes  of  Beethoven's  re- 
covery were  abandoned.  On  the  23d  they  read  him  his 
will.  It  was  suggested  that  the  words  "natural  heirs" 
should  be  put  in  the  place  of"  heirs  of  my  body,"  as  he  had 
no  children,  and  the  words  might  provoke  disputes.  He 
replied  that  the  one  term  was  as  good  as  the  other,  and 
that  it  should  remain  just  as  it  was.  This  was  his  last 
contradiction. 

In  the  afternoon  of  March  26th,  1827,  Beethoven  was 
seized  with  his  last  mortal  faintness.  Thick  clouds  were 


DEATH.  281 

hanging  about  the  sky;  outside,  the  snow  lay  upon  the 
ground  ;  toward  evening  the  wind  rose  ;  at  nightfall  a  ter- 
rific thunder-storm  burst  over  the  city  of  Vienna,  and  while 
the  storm  was  still  raging  the  spirit  of  the  sublime  master 
departed. 

Ludwig  van  Beethoven  died  in  his  fifty-fifth  year,  and  is 
buried  in  the  cemetery  of  Wahring,  near  Vienna. 

The  passages  which  I  am  about  to  quote  from  Beetho- 
ven's Will  are  likely  to  tell  the  reader  more  of  Beethoven's 
inner  life  than  almost  any  of  his  letters : 

"  Oh  ye,  who  consider  or  declare  me  to  be  hostile,  obstinate,  or  misan- 
thropic, what  injustice  ye  do  me !  Ye  know  not  the  secret  causes  of  that 
whioh  to  you  wears  such  an  appearance.  My  heart  and  my  mind  were 
from  childhood  prone  to  the  tender  feelings  of  affection.  Nay,  I  was  al- 
ways disposed  even  to  perform  great  actions.  But  only  consider  that,  for 
the  last  six  years,  I  have  been  attacked  by  an  incurable  complaint,  aggra- 
vated by  the  unskillful  treatment  of  medical  men,  disappointed  from  year 
to  year  in  the  hope  of  relief,  and  at  last  obliged  to  submit  to  the  endurance 
of  an  evil  the  cure  of  which  may  last  perhaps  for  years,  if  it  is  practicable 
at  all.  Born  with  a  lively,  ardent  disposition,  susceptible  to  the  diversions 
of  society,  I  was  forced  at  an  early  age  to  renounce  them,  and  to  pass  my 
life  in  seclusion.  If  I  strove  at  any  time  to  set  myself  above  all  this,  oh 
how  cruelly  was  I  driven  back  by  the  doubly  painful  experience  of  my  de- 
fective hearing !  and  yet  it  was  not  possible  for  me  to  say  to  people, '  Speak 
louder — bawl — for  I  am  deaf!'  Ah !  how  could  I  proclaim  the  defect  of  a 
sense  that  I  once  possessed  in  the  highest  perfection — in  a  perfection  in 
which  few  of  my  colleagues  possess  or  ever  did  possess  it  ?  Indeed,  I  can 
not!  Forgive  me,  then,  if  ye  see  me  draw  back  when  I  would  gladly 
mingle  among  you.  Doubly  mortifying  is  my  misfortune  to  me,  as  it 
must  tend  to  cause  me  to  be  misconceived.  From  recreation  in  the  soci- 
ety of  my  fellow-creatures,  from  the  pleasures  of  conversation,  from  the 
effusions  of  friendship,  I  am  cut  off.  Almost  alone  in  the  world,  I  dare 
not  venture  into  society  more  than  absolute  necessity  requires.  I  am 
obliged  to  live  as  an  exile.  If  I  go  into  company,  a  painful  anxiety  comes 
over  me,  since  I  am  apprehensive  of  being  exposed  to  the  danger  of  be- 
traying my  situation.  Such  has  been  my  state,  too,  during  this  half  year 
that  I  have  spent  in  the  country.  Enjoined  by  my  intelligent  physician 
to  spare  my  hearing  as  much  as  possible,  I  have  been  almost  encouraged 


282  BEETHOVEN. 

by  him  in  my  present  natural  disposition,  though,  hurried  away  by  my 
fondness  for  society,  I  sometimes  suffered  myself  to  be  enticed  into  it. 
But  what  a  humiliation  when  any  one  standing  beside  me  could  hear  at  a 
distance  a  flute  that  I  could  not  hear,  or  any  one  heard  the  shepherd  sing- 
ing, and  I  could  not  distinguish  a  sound !  Such  circumstances  brought  me 
to  the  brink  of  despair,  and  had  well-nigh  made  me  put  an  end  to  my  life: 
nothing  but  my  art  held  my  hand.  Ah !  it  seemed  to  me  impossible  to 
quit  the  world  before  I  had  produced  all  that  I  felt  myself  called  to  ac- 
complish. And  so  I  endured  this  wretched  life — so  truly  wretched,  that  a 
somewhat  speedy  change  is  capable  of  transporting  me  from  the  best  into 
the  worst  condition.  Patience — so  I  am  told — I  must  choose  for  my 
guide.  Steadfast,  I  hope,  will  be  my  resolution  to  persevere,  till  it  shall 
please  the  inexorable  Fates  to  cut  the  thread. 

"Perhaps  there  may  be  an  amendment — perhaps  not;  I  am  prepared 
for  the  worst — I,  who  so  early  as  my  twenty-eighth  year  was  forced  to  be- 
come a  philosopher — it  is  not  easy — for  the  artist  more  difficult  than  for 
any  other.  O  God !  thou  lookest  down  upon  my  misery ;  thou  knowest 
that  it  is  accompanied  with  love  of  my  fellow-creatures,  and  a  disposition 
to  do  good !  O  men !  when  ye  shall  read  this,  think  that  ye  have  wronged 
me ;  and  let  the  child  of  affliction  take  comfort  on  finding  one  like  him- 
self, who,  in  spite  of  all  the  impediments  of  nature,  yet  did  all  that  lay  in 
his  power  to  obtain  admittance  into  the  rank  of  worthy  artists  and  men. 
********* 

"I  go  to  meet  death  with  joy.  If  he  comes  before  I  have  had  occasion 
to  develop  all  my  professional  abilities,  he  will  come  too  soon  for  me,  in 
spite  of  my  hard  fate,  and  I  should  wish  that  he  had  delayed  his  arrival. 
But  even  then  I  am  content,  for  he  will  release  me  from  a  state  of  endless 
suffering.  Come  when  thou  wilt,  I  shall  meet  thee  with  firmness.  Fare- 
well, and  do  not  quite  forget  me  after  I  am  dead ;  I  have  deserved  that 
you  should  think  of  me,  for  in  my  lifetime  I  have  often  thought  of  you  to 
make  you  happy.  May  you  ever  be  so ! 

"  LPDWIG  VAN  BEETHOVSJT. 
"M.P.  (L.S.) 

"  HBILIQBNSTADT,  October  6th,  1802." 


MENDELSSOHN. 


IX 

A  BIOGEAPHY  of  Mendelssohn  has  yet  to  be  written;  but, 
132.         before  preeenting  the  reader  with  an  analysis  of 

Books  about  f.  * 

Mendelssohn,  the  J^ajaft,  1  propose  to  transfer  to  these  pages 
a  slight  sketch,  not  of  Mendelssohn's  life,  but  of  Mendels- 
sohn himself,  drawn  almost  entirely  from  a  volume  of  Rem- 
iniscences published  by  his  intimate  friend  Edward  Dev- 


284  MENDELSSOHN. 

rient.  The  book  is  neither  a  biography  nor  a  book  of  scat- 
tered notes,  but  it  is  a  kind  of  narrative,  giving  a  connected 
and  vivid  impression  of  Mendelssohn  as  he  appeared  to  one 
of  his  most  intimate  friends,  from  a  very  early  age  to  the 
time  of  his  death.  Nothing  so  real  and  life-like  about  him 
has  yet  come  before  the  public.  "  CEcolampadius"  only 
professes  to  give  a  sketch.  Mr.  Benedict's  charming  little 
work  is  but  the  shadow  of  an  affectionate  sketch.  The 
two  volumes  of  Mendelssohn's  own  letters  are,  of  course, 
priceless;  but  Elise  Polko's  anecdotes  are  almost  disfig- 
ured by  enthusiasm.  Edward  Devrient  is  content  to  draw 
very  fully,  as  far  as  he  could  see  it,  the  picture  of  one  who 
was  more  than  a  brother  to  him — whose  genius  he  pro- 
foundly reverenced,  whose  character  he  understood  perhaps 
better  than  any  body  now  living,  whose  virtues  he  never 
ceased  to  extol,  but  whose  faults  he  never  attempted  to 
conceal.  Some  will  doubtless  consider  that  the  additional 
letters  of  Mendelssohn,  there  published  for  the  first  time, 
are  the  most  valuable  portion  of  the  book ;  and,  indeed, 
they  possess  in  the  highest  degree  all  those  qualities  which 
drew  the  public  toward  the  first  two  volumes  of  Mendels- 
sohn's letters.  The  little  vivid  touches  of  description  be- 
tray the  same  poetic  heart  and  facile  pen : 

"  I  send  yon  this  from  Styria.  The  conyent  is  quite  inclpsed  by  green 
wooded  hills ;  there  is  a  rushing  and  murmuring  on  every  side,  and  the 
consequence  is  trout  for  supper.  It  is  now  only  seven  o'clock,  and  already 
quite  dark.  This  reminds  one  of  autumn,  no  less  than  by  day  do  the 
thousand  tinted  hills,  where  the  red  of  the  cherry-trees  and  the  pale  green 
of  the  winter  gleam  gayly  through  each  other.  I  went  in  the  twilight  to 
the  convent,  and  made  acquaintance  with  the  organ." 

Educated  with  an  almost  Spartan  rigor — early  brought 

133          into  contact  with  every  department  of  human 

Characteristics,  knowledge,  and  associating  constantly  with  his 

elders,  Mendelssohn  nevertheless  retained  throughout  his 


CHARACTERISTICS.  285 

life  the  simplicity  and  impulsiveness  of  a  child ;  yet  his 
career  is  full  of  manly  energy,  enlightened  enthusiasm,  and 
the  severest  devotion  to  the  highest  forms  of  art.  He  had 
a  passion  for  cake  and  sweetmeats,  and  a  detestation  of 
every  kind  of  meanness  and  hypocrisy.  He  could  romp 
like  a  child,  but  shrunk  from  any  thing  like  dissipation  or 
excess.  Nothing  can  be  more  genuine  than  his  indigna- 
tion upon  one  occasion  when  his  anxious  friend  Devrient, 
hearing  of  the  adulation  lavished  upon  him  in  London, 
wrote  to  warn  him  of  the  dangers  and  seductions  of  Lon- 
don society.  Mendelssohn  was  then  a  very  young  man, 
and  his  older  friend  might  well  be  excused  some  little 
anxiety  on  his  account. 

"If  you  were  here,  I  might  walk  up  and  down  your  room,  and  vent  my 
vexation  about  many  things,  but  it  will  be  some  time  till  we  meet,  and  if 
you  have  not  full  reliance  in  one  whom  you  should  know,  you  will  have 
cause  enough  hereafter  to  feel  uncomfortable  about  him.  Now  I  should 
be  sorry  for  this,  and  very  sorry  if  any  thing  again  were  to  be  useful  or 
hurtful  to  me  in  your  good  opinion,  or  that  you  thought  I  could  ever 
change.  Upon  my  word,  Devrient,  when  I  improve  or  deteriorate  I  shall 
let  you  know  by  express.  Till  then,  believe  it  not.  Of  course  I  mean  as 
to  certain  things  usually  called  sentiments. " 

Mendelssohn's  very  weaknesses  were  lovable.  If  he 
was  sometimes  sharp  with  his  friends,  it  was  because  he 
could  not  bear  the  shadow  of  suspicion  ;  if  he  was  some- 
times suspicious  himself,  it  was  because  his  sensitive  na- 
ture was  too  open  to  sudden  and  often  one-sided  impres- 
sions ;  if  he  could  not  pardon  jealousy  or  meanness  in  low- 
er natures  than  his  own,  it  was  because  he  was  incapable 
of  understanding  them.  His  want  of  resolution  is  some- 
times charming.  When  Devrient  had  persuaded  him  to 
go  to  old  Zelter,  his  beloved  master,  in  order  to  try  and 
win  him  over  to  the  production  of  Bach's  Passions  Musik, 
Mendelssohn  characteristically  says  at  the  door, 

"'  If  he  is  abusive  I  shall  go.     I  can  not  squabble  with  him.'     '  He  is 


286  MENDELSSOHN. 

sure  to  be  abusive,'  said  I,  'but  I  will  take  the  squabbling  in  hand  my- 
self."' 
What  delicate  little  touches  of  character  are  these ! 

"  He  came  to  us  at  twilight  to  say  good-by,  anxious  and  cast  down.  I 
went  with  him  across  the  court,  and  we  walked  up  and  down  a  long  time 
under  the  projecting  eaves  by  the  summer  drawing-room,  as  there  was  a 
gentle  rain.  Felix  poured  himself  out  in  almost  infantile  lamentations ; 
he  wept,  nor  was  I  able  to  comfort  him." 

He  had  little  coaxing  ways  with  his  friends,  which  made 
them  love  him  with  something  like  a  child's  love.  When 
in  company  with  Devrient,  he  would  sometimes  pronounce 
his  name  with  an  affectionate  and  lingering  drawl, "  Ede- 
ward,"  dpropos  of  nothing  in  particular,  and  gently  stroke 
his  head  or  lean  confidingly  upon  his  arm.  Devrient  tells 
us  with  emotion  how,  years  later,  when  much  had  passed 
between  them,  many  things  had  changed,  and  he  some- 
times fancied  his  friend  was  not  the  same  Mendelssohn  of 
old  times,  the  old  word,  pronounced  in  the  old  loving  way, 
recalled  him  to  himself,  and  almost  brought  tears  to  his 
eyes. 

Mendelssohn's  brain  was  from  the  first  overstimulated. 
134.         But  nature  had  prepared  remedies  for  him — 
Temperament.  reme(jies  which  could  not  prevent  premature 
decay,  but  which,  no  doubt,  lengthened  out  his  short  life. 
Trifles  sometimes  excited  him  almost  to  frenzy ;  he  could 
not  bear  disappointment  or  opposition.     On  one  occasion, 
•when  there  was  some  likelihood  of  a  royal  summons  inter- 
fering with  a  little  domestic  f&e, 

"  His  excitement  increased  so  fearfully  that,  when  the  family  was  as- 
sembled for  the  evening,  he  began  to  talk  incoherently  and  in  English,  to 
the  great  terror  of  them  all  ....  they  took  him  to  bed,  and  a  profound 
sleep  of  twelve  hours  restored  him  to  his  normal  state." 

It  was  by  these  sleeps,  often  almost  like  death  in  their  si- 
lent torpor,  that  nature  recreated  a  frame  constantly  over- 


TEMPERAMENT.  287 

taxed  to  the  extreme  limits  of  endurance  by  nervous  ex- 
citement. His  appetite,  also,  never  failed  him ;  he  could 
eat  almost  at  any  time,  and,  according  to  his  own  playful 
admission,  to  any  extent. 

With  such  a  temperament  there  was  keen  joy,  much 
work,  and  great  suffering  for  him  in  life ;  and  deeply  he 
drank  of  each  cup,  until  one  by  one  he  put  them  down 
empty,  and  composed  himself  for  his  last  deep  sleep.  It 
has  been  the  fashion  to  say  in  England  that  Mendelssohn 
was  not  a  good  conductor ;  that  he  was  too  irritable  and 
exacting.  The  same  was  said  in  Berlin ;  but  this  was  nev- 
er said  at  Leipsic.  No  doubt,  when  out  of  a  sympathetic 
atmosphere,  when  contending  at  his  desk  with  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  Berliners,  who  looked  upon  him  as  an  inter- 
loper, and  the  stupidity  of  the  English  players,  many  of 
whom  thought  him  an  upstart,  he  failed  sometimes  to  con- 
ciliate the  orchestra  or  to  conquer  its  defects.  Yet  it  is 
allowed  that  with  the  most  stubborn  materials  he  wrought 
wonders  in  England ;  and  although  he  was  never  appreci- 
ated at  Berlin,  he  always  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  es- 
caping. Devrient  is  probably  right  when,  admitting  his 
excessive  irritability  at  times,  he  speaks  of  his  conducting 
when  surrounded  by  those  who  loved  to  play  as  quite  per- 
fect. He  declares  that  the  way  in  which  he  was  able  to 
infuse  himself  into  the  band  was  little  short  of  magical, 
and  at  times  he  would  leave  off  in  a  kind  of  trance,  and 
listen  with  his  head  a  little  on  one  side,  quite  rapt  with 
delight  at  the  band  itself  having  become  Mendelssohn, 
and  therefore  hardly  needing  Mendelssohn's  baton  for  the 
time. 

But  there  are  pages  in  Mendelssohn's  life  which  have 
Wif^ha  never  keen  filled  up,  and  points  of  interrogation 
dr«n,  D«ath>  which  have  never  been  answered.  His  relations 


288  MENDELSSOHN. 

with  his  wife  Cecile  nee  Jean-Renaud  appear  to  have  been 
tender  and  satisfactory,  and  yet  her  name  is  hardly  ever 
mentioned  in  any  letter  or  book  of  reminiscences  which 
has  yet  appeared.  She  seems  before  her  own  death  to 
have  destroyed  all  his  letters  to  herself,  and  with  the  ex- 
ception of  a  few  casual,  but  affectionate  remarks  in  some 
letters  written  very  soon  after  their  marriage,  Mendelssohn 
does  not  allude  to  her  in  his  published  correspondence. 

A  change,  which  Devrient  himself  can  only  partially  ac- 
count for,  seems  to  have  passed  over  Mendelssohn  on  his 
return  from  England  in  1848. 

"I  became  clearly  conscious  of  a  change  that  had  come  over  the  sour- 
ces of  his  inner  life.  His  blooming,  youthful  joyousness  had  given  place 
to  a  fretfulness,  a  satiety  of  all  earthly  things,  which  reflected  every  thing 
back  from  the  spirit  of  former  days.  Conducting  concerts,  every  thing 
that  savored  of  business,  was  an  intolerable  annoyance  to  him ;  he  took 
no  longer  any  pleasure  in  the  conservatorium ;  he  gave  over  his  piano- 
forte pupils ;  not  one  of  the  young  people  inspired  him  with  any  sympa- 
thy ;  he  could  not  bear  to  see  any  of  their  compositions. " 

If  there  is  any  explanation  of  this  change  beyond  disease 
of  the  brain,  which  seems  to  have  been  hereditary  in  the 
Mendelssohn  family,  we  shall  probably  not  know  yet  a 
while,  or,  indeed,  until  some  of  his  contemporaries,  who 
may  have  the  keys  of  the  enigma  in  their  hands,  have 
passed  away. 

He  never  got  over  the  death  of  his  favorite  sister  Fanny. 
He  went  to  Interlachen  with  his  family,  and  worked  hard 
at  the  education  of  his  children,  the  unfinished  Lorelei  and 
the  unfinished  Christus.  Soon  after,  at  Leipsic,  working 
with  ever  more  and  more  application  as  he  felt  the  night 
approaching,  he  was  seized  with  a  fatal  pain  in  his  head. 
A  relapse  followed. 

"On  the  5th  I  went  in  the  evening  to  Bendemann,  where  I  hoped  to 
learn  the  latest  tidings  from  Leipsic.  There  came  Clara  Schumann  with 
H  letter,  weeping;  Felix  hnd  died  yesterday  evening,  Nov.  4th." 


ELIJAH.-ISTRODUCTION.  289 

We  must  conclude  with  a  few  more  of  Devrient's  own 
touching  words: 

"  Hensel  led  me  to  the  corpse,  which  he  had  thoughtfully  decorated. 
There  lay  my  beloved  friend  in  a  costly  coffin,  upon  cushions  of  satin,  em- 
broidered in  tall  growing  shrubs,  and  covered  with  wreaths  of  flowers  and 
laurels.  He  looked  much  aged,  but  recalled  to  me  the  expression  of  the 
boy  as  I  had  first  seen  him.  Where  my  hand  had  so  often  stroked  the 
long  brown  locks  and  the  burning  brow  of  the  boy,  I  now  touched  the 
marble  forehead  of  the  man.  This  span  of  time  in  my  remembrance  in- 
closes the  whole  of  happy  youth  in  one  perfect  and  indelible  thought- " 


ORATORIO  OF  ELIJAH. 

PART   FIRST. 

NEXT  to  the  MESSIAH,  the  ELIJAH  is  the  most  popular 
136  oratorio  in  England.  It  is  shorter  and  more 
introduction.  Dramatic  than  Handel's  masterpiece,  less  theo- 
logical than  Spohr's  Last  Judgment^  and  infinitely  less  di- 
dactic and  monotonous  than  the  wondrous  Passion  Music 
of  Sebastien  Bach.  Thus,  while  the  subject-matter  of  the 
Elijah  is  full  of  the  most  stirring  incidents,  its  artistic 
form  is  sufficiently  brief  to  rivet  the  attention  of  even  an 
uncultivated  audience  from  the  first  recitative  down  to  the 
last  chorus.  No  man  ever  wrote  more  in  the  presence  of 
his  public  and  less  in  the  seclusion  of  his  study  than  Men- 
delssohn, and  in  no  other  work  has  he  so  finely  calculated 
the  capacities  of  the  ordinary  music-loving  mind,  and  so 
richly  poured  forth  treasures  which  the  most  experienced 
musician  will  find,  if  not  inexhaustible,  yet  always  perfect. 

The  strange  and  majestic  figure  of  the  "Prodigiosua 

13T        Thesbites,"  as  he  is  called  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum, 

SieVro^het  ls  ushered  in  by  four  solemn  but  not  violent 

trumpet-blasts — a  mode  of  appeal  to  the  imagi- 

19 


290  MENDELSSOHN. 

nation  of  the  audience  which  afterward  frequently,  but  not 
invariably,  accompanies  the  appearance  of  Elijah. 

The  northern  kingdom  of  Israel  under  Ahab,  in  the  lux- 
ury of  its  magnificent  cities  of  Jezreel  and  Samaria,  had 
forgotten  the  God  who  had  led  the  wandering  tribes  like 
sheep  through  the  deserts  of  Sinai.  Jezebel,  the  Sidonian 
queen,  had  not  only  persecuted  the  prophets  of  the  true 
God,  but  had  superseded  the  Jewish  worship  of  holiness 
and  purity  with  the  seductive  idolatry  of  power  and  pas- 
sion. On  every  high  hill  flamed  the  pagan  sacrifices,  and 
wild,  licentious  orgies  had  penetrated  even  into  the  sanc- 
tuary of  Israel,  and  taken  the  place  of  Jehovah's  pure  and 
elevating  ritual.  The  harvest  of  sin  seemed  ripe,  the  time 
was  near  at  hand,  the  hearts  of  the  seven  thousand  who 
had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal  cried  aloud  from  the  dens 
and  caves  of  the  earth,  and  the  God  of  righteousness  at 
last  arose  to  confound  the  rebellious  nation  with  famine 
and  drought.  Alone,  the  man  of  the  desert,  clothed  in  a 
rough  sheepskin,  and  wearing  a  leathern  girdle  about  his 
loins,  with  the  suddenness  of  an  apparition  confronted  the 
idolatrous  Ahab,  and  pronounced  the  curse  of  drought  upon 
the  streams  and  valleys  of  the  land. 

The  opening  prelude  indicates  the  gradual  awakening 
iss.       of  the  nation  to  the  sense  of  a  new  calamity. 

Famine  and  «•••..« 

Dearth.  Less  and  less  water,  the  wells  fast  drying  up,  the 
routine  of  life  gradually  affected,  the  cattle  fainting  on  the 
highways,  the  people  vainly  seeking  for  relief,  the  impa- 
tient and  irritable  chafing  of  the  sufferers  at  the  conse- 
quences of  a  curse  as  yet  but  half  realized ;  such  is  the 
purport  of  the  first  subject.  The  second  begins  with  a 
crescendo  of  semiquavers,  indicating  very  powerfully  the 
approach  of  a  more  intense  anguish.  Still  the  first  phrase 
of  impatience  is  woven  into  this  new  subject  as  an  under- 


FAMINE  AND  DEARTH.  291 

current,  and  the  movement  is  then  carried  on  with  increas- 
ing vehemence  until  impatience  rising  to  fury,  fury  sinks 
at  last  into  the  wild  impotence  of  despair,  which  culmi- 
nates in  the  desperate  cry  of "  Help,  Lord !"  wrung  from 
the  whole  body  of  the  apostate  people. 

After  the  first  three  passionate  shouts  the  solid  business 
of  the  first  chorus  begins,  with  a  chromatic  phrase  of 
mournful  and  tender  beauty  taken  up  gently  and  distinct- 
ly by  each  part — "  The  harvest  is  over,  the  summer  days 
are  gone,  no  power  cometh  to  help !"  The  sorrow  goes 
on  rocking  itself  into  a  calm  and  almost  pensive  mood, 
when  suddenly  a  change  of  emotion  occurs  with  the  words, 
"  Will  then  the  Lord  be  no  more  God  in  Zion  ?"  It  is  one 
of  those  abrupt  and  magical  inspirations  which  Mendels- 
sohn often  employs  to  bind  together  the  different  sections 
of  his  choruses ;  anon  the  old  plaintive  phrase  is  woven  in 
with  a  newly-developed  meaning ;  the  heavy  grief  is  rapid- 
ly yielding  to  a  stern  and  bitter  feeling  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  certain  special  incidents  of  the  drought,  such  as 
"  the  suckling's  tongue  cleaving  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth" 
and  "  the  children  crying  for  bread." 

Another  chorus  full  of  heavy  affliction  follows,  but  its 
tone  is  more  chastened,  and  it  is  not  until  all  irritation  has 
died  away,  and  the  hearts  of  the  people  have  been  brought 
low  by  the  divine  judgments,  that  Obadiah,  the  king's 
servant,  in  the  character  of  a  minor  prophet,  comes  forth 
to  speak  of  a  God  who  is  slow  to  anger  and  of  great  kind- 
ness, and  repenteth  him  of  the  evil.  With  the  immortal 
tenor  song, "  If  with  all  your  hearts  ye  truly  seek  me,"  the 
hearer  now  enjoys  a  short  respite  from  the  dreary  and 
hopeless  anguish  of  the  afflicted  people. 

But  the  rest  is  of  short  duration,  for  no  sooner  have  the 
last  echoes  of  the  tenor  solo  died  away  than  the  chorus 
breaks  out  again  into  wild  lamentations,  mingled  this  time 


292  MENDELSSOHN. 

with  a  consciousness  of  sin  as  well  as  of  suffering,  and  with 
that  sense  of  sin  comes  terror.  This  last  emotion  is  almost 
immediately  suspended  by  a  chorale  of  calm  and  severe 
beauty  worthy  of  Sebastien  Bach,  as  a  vision  of  God's  holi- 
ness dawns  upon  the  sensual  and  idolatrous  heart.  The 
mourners  seem  to  forget  their  sorrow  for  a  while  and  be- 
come rapt  in  the  contemplation,  not  so  much  of  a  jealous 
God  who  visits  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children, 
as  of  one  "  whose  mercies  fall  upon  thousands."  In  this 
wider  and  more  consolatory  view  of  the  divine  nature  we 
are  again  lifted  above  the  harrowing  scene  of  a  great 
national  calamity,  and  soon  afterward  we  find  ourselves 
transported  with  Elijah  to  a  solitary  place  by  the  brook 
Cherith,  to  await  in  the  hollow  of  the  torrent's  bed  the 
further  unfolding  of  the  divine  purposes. 

It  is  here,  beyond  the  cries  of  a  distracted  nation — be- 
139.  yond  the  reach  of  Ahab  and  the  wrath  of  Jezebel, 
The  Desert.  tkat  Elijah  listens  in  a  dream  to  a  double  chorus 
of  angels.  These  choral  quartets  are  managed  with  six 
trebles  and  two  basses,  and  any  thing  more  truly  ethereal 
than  the  effect  produced  can  hardly  be  conceived.  "He 
shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee."  The  waves  of 
high,  clear  melody  break  upon  the  stillness  of  the  desert, 
and  float  joyously  through  the  air.  The  veil  of  heaven  it- 
self seems  rent,  and  in  the  clear  blue  sky  the  faces  and 
forms  of  the  angels  are  ranged  in  calm  and  beautiful  ranks, 
as  in  the  pictures  of  Fra  Angelico,  smitten  with  the  eternal 
brightness  and  filled  with  divine  harmony,  as  when  "  the 
morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God 
shouted  for  joy." 

No  wonder  that  the  prophet  who  had  listened  to  such 
music,  and  received  the  promise  of  divine  protection  "  in 
all  his  ways,"  returned  with  more  than  mortal  strength  to 


THE  SA  ORIFICE  ON  MO  VNT  CARMEL.  293 

minister  among  men.  Armed  with  angelic  might,  nothing 
was  now  impossible  to  him.  The  passionate  appeal  of  the 
widow  woman  of  Sarepta  is  answered  by  the  calm  words 
"  Give  me  thy  son,"  and  as  the  blood  begins  to  course 
again  through  the  veins  of  the  dead  child,  and  the  breath 
in  faint  rushes  comes  and  goes,  the  infinite  love  of  God 
seems  to  break  upon  the  poor  woman's  soul  for  the  first 
time,  and  the  chorus,  "  Blessed  are  the  men  who  fear  Him," 
at  once  suggests  the  meaning  of  Elijah's  miracle,  and  con- 
firms in  the  mother's  heart  a  new  emotion  of  adoration 
and  trust. 

Once  more  the  trumpets  peal  forth  as  Elijah  reappears, 
140.          after  three  years,  in  the  presence  of  the  king, 

The  Sacrifice  on  ' 

Mount  CarmeL  and  announces  the  close  of  the  drought.  A 
short  choral  burst  interrupts  his  recitative — it  is  the  clam- 
oring of  the  fickle  people,  now  rebellious,  now  penitent, 
then  again  ready  to  rend  in  pieces  the  prophet  of  the  Lord 
as  they  shout  aloud  the  words  of  the  angry  king  :  "  Thou 
art  he  that  troubleth  Israel."  But  the  solemn  conclusion 
of  all  doubt  is  at  hand,  and  both  the  multitude  and  the 
priests  of  Baal  become  strangely  docile  beneath  the  at- 
tractive power  of  a  great  impending  catastrophe.  Every 
word  of  Elijah  is  now  caught  up  as  readily  by  the  chorus 
as  were  but  lately  the  words  of  Ahab.  The  crowds  sweep 
on  at  the  bidding  of  the  prophet,  who,  from  this  time  forth 
throughout  the  scene  on  Carmel,  never  for  one  moment 
loses  his  ascendency  over  them.  They  catch  from  his  lips 
the  inspiration  of  their  brief  chorus — "  And  then  we  shall 
see  whose  God  is  the  Lord,"  as  he  gathers  them  together, 
and  summons  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  prophets  of  Baal 
to  meet  him  upon  the  mountain  promontory. 

At  the   command  of  Elijah  the   first  heathen   chorus 
breaks  forth.     It  is  of  a  severe  and  formal  character,  very 


294  MENDELSSOHN. 

simple  in  construction,  consisting  of  a  hard,  short  melody, 
repeated  again  and  again,  with  a  kind  of  dogged  abrupt- 
ness. Indeed,  the  second  phrase  is  sufficiently  bare  and  an- 
cient in  form  to  remind  one  forcibly  of  the  Macbeth  music, 
commonly,  though  falsely,  attributed  to  Matthew  Locke. 

The  second  Baal  chorus  begins  with  great  earnestness. 
It  is  full  of  misgivings,  and  at  last  loses  every  vestige  of 
ritualistic  stiffness  in  the  wild  cries  of  "  Baal,  hear  us !" 
followed  by  death-like  pauses,  in  which  the  whole  assem- 
bly waits  for  the  reply  of  Baal.  "  Call  him  louder !"  shouts 
the  prophet  of  Jehovah,  as  he  stands  apart  and  views  with 
derision  the  scene  of  idolatrous  fanaticism. 

The  trumpets  peal  forth  derisively,  as  though  to  herald 
in  the  answer  of  Baal,  and  his  prophets  spend  themselves 
in  frantic  eiforts  to  awaken  their  sleeping  god,  but  in  vain. 
Then,  maddened  by  the  exulting  sarcasm  of  Elijah,  they 
pour  forth  their  last  wild  chorus,  leaping  upon  the  altar 
and  cutting  themselves  with  knives,  fainting  at  times  from 
sheer  exhaustion  and  loss  of  blood ;  then  starting  up  with 
shrieks  of  frenzy  and  despair,  they  fall  back  upon  the 
ground,  and  their  plaint  relapses  into  a  protracted  mono- 
tone of  pain,  succeeded  by  an  awful  stillness. 

Wounded  and  bleeding  around  their  unconsumed  sacri- 
fice crouch  the  false  prophets.  The  shadows  begin  to 
darken  in  the  mountain  hollows,  and  the  sun  dips  slowly 
in  the  western  sea. 

In  the  deepening  twilight  the  voice  of  Elijah  is  heard, 
and  the  strong,  calm  prayer  of  the  true  prophet  ascends  to 
God.  The  meditative  quartet, "  Cast  thy  burden  upon  the 
Lord,"  follows.  It  is  exactly  what  is  needed  to  prepare  the 
mind  for  the  violence  and  tumult  of  the  next  terrible  scene. 

Once  more  Elijah  speaks,  but  no  longer  in  prayer.  He 
has  transcended  all  ordinary  forms  of  communion,  and  his 
mind  seems  rapt  in  the  contemplation  of  a  spirit-world  out 


THE  STORM  ON  MOUNT  CARMEL.  295 

of  all  proportion  to  ours ;  he  is  conversing  with  none  oth- 
er than  the  flaming  ministers  of  heaven  ;  and  at  the  words, 
"  Let  them  now  descend,"  the  fire  falls  from  the  skies  with 
the  hurtling  crash  of  thunder,  and  the  immense  chorus  of 
the  people,  thrilled  with  mingled  ecstasy  and  terror,  closes 
in  round  the  blazing  altar  of  victorious  Jehovah. 

The  pent-up  excitement  of  a  long  day  finds  a  splendid 
and  appropriate  utterance  in  the  passionate  adoration  of 
the  crowd,  and  they  fall  upon  their  faces  with  one  mighty 
and  prolonged  cry  of  "  God  the  Lord  is  our  God :  we  will 
have  none  other  God  but  him."  In  another  moment  the 
religious  emotion  has  passed  into  a  murderous  frenzy,  and 
the  prophets  of  Baal  are  hewn  down  like  corn  beneath  a 
pelting  hail-storm.  The  carnage  is  over  and  the  vengeance 
done  ere  night  descends  upon  the  tumultuous  throng  and 
the  smoking  altar  of  the  true  God. 

With  a  really  splendid  temerity  characteristic  of  him, 
i«.         Mendelssohn  dares  after  this  climax  to  return 

The  Storm  on  . 

Mount  Carmei  to  the  subject  with  a  bass  solo,  descriptive  ol 

— "  Thanks  be  J 

to  God."  Elijahs  prophetic  majesty  upon  that  memora- 
ble day,  and  a  quiet  alto  song,  full  of  solemn  pathos,  pro- 
nouncing woe  upon  all  those  who  forsake  God.  It  is  here 
that,  were  it  not  for  the  exquisite  beauty  of  what  we  may 
call  this  didactic  episode,  the  action  of  the  first  part  might 
be  in  danger  of  dragging  a  little.  But  the  composer  is 
still  master  of  the  situation.  He  knew  that  the  mind  would 
be  exhausted  by  the  prolonged  vigil  and  sustained  excite- 
ment of  the  scene  upon  Mount  Carmei,  and  the  needful  re- 
pose is  provided. 

The  way  in  which  a  second  great  climax  is  rendered  ef- 
fective so  soon  after  the  first  is  worthy  of  some  attention. 

After  the  two  didactic  pieces  alluded  to  above,  which 
are  intended  to  recreate  the  emotions,  the  action  becomes 


296  MENDELSSOHN. 

exceedingly  rapid.  Two  short  recitatives,  then  the  brief 
cry  for  rain,  followed  by  the  thrilling  dialogue  between  the 
prophet  who  prays  on  Carmel  and  the  youth  who  watches 
the  sky  for  the  first  filmy  shadow  of  a  rain-cloud.  "  There 
is  nothing !"  and  the  music  is  suspended  on  a  long  note  of 
intense  anticipation.  "  Hearest  thou  no  sound  V"  and  a 
growing  agitation  in  the  accompaniment  makes  us  feel  the 
distant  stirring  of  the  wind.  Then  the  little  cloud  appears 
like  a  man's  hand,  and  in  a  moment,  as  the  prophet  rises 
abruptly  from  his  knees,  with  the  rapidity  of  an  Eastern 
tempest,  the  deluge  of  rain  is  upon  us,  drenching  the  parch- 
ed valleys  of  Carmel,  and  dashing  into  the  empty  pools. 
We  are  but  one  step  from  the  grand  conclusion  of  the  first 
part ;  but  that  conclusion  is  not  to  be  in  the  storm,  as  we 
should  have  expected.  No  temptation  can  hurry  Mendels- 
sohn from  his  artistic  purpose ;  not  a  point  is  to  be  lost, 
not  a  touch  of  perfection  omitted.  A  brief  shout  of  mad 
delight  rises  from  the  people ;  in  the  pauses  of  the  tem- 
pest, the  dominant  voice  of  the  mighty  Tishbite  is  once 
more  heard,  uttering  the  phrase,  " Thanks  be  to  God!" 
which  is  in  another  moment  reiterated  by  the  whole  mul- 
titude ;  and  the  last  and  greatest  chorus  of  the  first  part 
then  commences,  and  thunders  on  with  uninterrupted  splen- 
dor to  its  magnificent  close. 

SECOND   PART. 

The  second  part  of  the  Elijah  is  in  some  respects  finer 
141        than  the  first.     It  contains  at  least  as  many  im- 
IndtheMhes-  mortal  fragments,  while  the  great  danger  of  mo- 
notony is  avoided  by  a  variety  of  new  and  start- 
ling incidents,  woven  into  an  elaborate  whole,  which,  if  it 
does  not  exceed  the  first  part  in  beauty  of  arrangement, 
has  evidently  made  greater  demands  upon  the  composer, 
and  astonishes  the  listener  by  its  sustained  power  and  com- 
pleteness. 


EXULTATION.  297 

The  Messiah  is  composed  in  three  parts  ;  but  we  may 
fairly  say  that  although  Mendelssohn  found  it  possible  to 
produce  a  second  part  in  many  respects  more  powerful 
than  the  first,  the  unique  splendor  of  that  second  part  ren- 
dered the  very  notion  of  a  third  simply  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

Resuming  the   subject,  we  find  that  the  action  is  not 
143         immediately  recommenced.    It  would  indeed  be 


0uot  nar^  if  we  could  not  put  up  with  some  moral 
Afraid."  comment  upon  the  events  which  have  just  oc- 
curred, especially  when  the  moral  is  conveyed  by  one  of 
the  most  thrilling  soprano  songs  ever  written.  The  clear 
freshness  of  the  key  of  five  sharps  breaks  upon  us  with  an 
impetuous  rush  of  words,  "  I,  I  am  he  that  comforteth  ;  be 
not  afraid  ;  I  am  thy  God."  The  highest  pitch  of  exulta- 
tion is  reached  when  the  voice  sweeps  up  from  C  to  the 
high  A,  to  descend  through  a  splendid  sequence  and  rest 
upon  the  lower  A  in  the  words,  "  I  the  Lord  will  strength- 
en thee."  In  the  course  of  the  song,  all  the  most  brilliant 
soprano  effects  which  are  calculated  to  express  the  confi- 
dence of  a  burning  impetuosity  seem  to  have  been  well- 
nigh  exhausted.  The  same  phrase  from  C  to  A  has  appa- 
rently brought  things  to  a  climax  toward  the  end  ;  but  in 
the  next  line  a  completely  new  and  still  more  startling  ef- 
fect is  attained  by  sweeping  up  from  B  to  A  natural  (in- 
stead of  the  normal  A  sharp  of  the  key),  and  descending 
through  a  long  G  to  the  close  of  the  song  in  B. 

But  we  have  not  yet  done  with  the  exulting  sentiment 
started  by  the  soprano,  for  we  are  now  close  upon  what 
has  been  not  unjustly  considered  the  greatest  of  Mendels- 
sohn's choruses.  After  a  silence  of  about  half  a  bar,  the 
mighty  "  Be  not  afraid,"  with  the  whole  power  of  the  cho- 
rus, orchestra,  and  organ,  bursts  with  a  crash  upon  the 


298  MENDELSSOHN. 

audience,  already  filled  with  the  emotion  of  triumph  in  its 
more  simple  song-form.  Now  it  is  not  one  shrill  angel 
only,  but,  as  it  were,  all  the  battalions  of  heaven,  with 
joyous  shouting  and  glad  thunder  marching  onward,  and 
chiming  as  they  go  the  glorious  deliverance  which  God 
has  prepared  for  his  people. 

The  languishing  of  thousands  is  then  described  in  a 
minor  phrase  of  contrast  taken  up  by  each  part  in  succes- 
sion, while  the  accompaniment  expresses  the  fainting  of 
those  who  rise,  and  fall,  and  gasp  for  breath ;  and  the  old 
scene  of  the  wide  land  smitten  with  drought  and  inexora- 
ble suffering  of  thirst-stricken  people  comes  back  to  us  like 
a  dim  memory  in  the  midst  of  this  glorious  atmosphere  of 
redemptive  joy,  when,  with  a  suddenness  and  imperious 
decision  that  nothing  can  check,  the  dream  is  arrested,  and 
vanishes  forever  before  the  recurrence  of  the  first  colossal 
subject,  which  now  proceeds  for  some  time  with  a  steady 
swing  and  a  kind  of  white  heat  at  once  resistless  and  sub- 
lime. The  rapid  march  of  the  chorus  now  so  fastens  the 
listener  that  he  almost  pants  for  an  enlarged  scene,  or  rath- 
er longs  to  take  in  the  sound  with  more  senses  than  one. 
There  are  no  pages  more  utterly  satisfactory,  even  to  the 
ordinary  hearer,  than  the  closing  pages  of"  Be  not  afraid." 
The  satisfaction  is  shared  by  the  orchestra ;  every  instru- 
ment has  to  play  what  it  can  play  so  well ;  the  first  violin 
parts,  especially,  make  the  heart  of  a  violinist  leap  to  look 
at  them.  Who  does  not  remember  the  richness  of  the  ac- 
companiments in  that  striking  passage  toward  the  close, 
where  the  musical  phrase  rises  on  a  series  of  melodic  steps, 
supported  by  the  richest  harmonic  suspensions,  from  B,  B 
to  A,  from  D,  D  to  C,  from  C,  C  to  B,  until  the  long  D  is 
reached  in  the  word  "  afraid,"  and  the  violins  in  serried 
ranks,  with  all  the  power  of  the  most  grinding  stretto,  scale 
to  upper  E  once,  with  a  shrill  scream  that  pierces  high 


JEZEBEL.  299 

through  the  orchestral  tempest,  and  then  draw  down  to 
the  long-expected  D  which  ends  the  phrase?  This  con- 
summate passage  is  repeated  in  extenso,  without  pause  or 
interlude,  and  brings  us  to  the  two  last  shouts  of  "  Be  not 
afraid,"  accompanied  by  the  significant  silences  which  ush- 
er in  the  close  of  the  chorus ;  and  then,  in  the  simplest  and 
broadest  form,  come  the  eight  bars  of  thundering  chorale, 
"  Thy  help  is  near,  be  not  afraid,  saith  the  Lord."  The 
chorus  is  well  weighted.  Those  bars  rendering  their  three 

o  *^> 

massive  clauses  are  felt  to  be  sufficient  balance  without 
any  extra  page  of  musical  peroration.  Any  thing  more 
simple  can  hardly  be  imagined,  but  nothing  more  compli- 
cated would  produce  so  complete  and  majestic  an  effect. 
Mendelssohn  is  not  less  great  because  he  knows  when  to 
be  simple. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  people  for  the  worship  of  the  true 
144  God  and  his  prophet  proves  short-lived  enough,  and 
Jezebel.  a  new  figure  js  now  brought  before  us  in  connection 
with  the  popular  disaffection.  A  few  words  of  scathing 
rebuke  addressed  to  Ahab,  in  some  of  those  matchless  reci- 
tatives which  knit  together  so  many  portions  of  the  orato- 
rio as  with  links  of  pure  gold,  a  lofty  proclamation  of  the 
outraged  sovereignty  of  God,  and  a  sharp  condemnation 
of  Baal  worship,  are  sufficient  to  bring  out  the  Sidonian 
queen  with  powerful  dramatic  effect.  The  type  at  once 
of  heathen  pride,  beauty,  and  insolence,  this  great  pagan 
figure,  in  the  midst  of  her  haughty  and  indomitable  will, 
towers  high  above  the  wretched  vacillation  of  King  Ahab 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  miserable  irresolution  of  the  pop- 
ulace on  the  other.  In  all  Israel  she  was  the  only  worthy 
rival  of  Elijah,  for  she  alone  seems  to  have  thoroughly 
known  her  own  mind.  Not  for  one  moment  did  she  con- 
fuse the  points  at  issue.  It  was  human  passion  and  human 


300  MENDELSSOHN. 

power  pitted  against  the  righteousness  ot  Jehovah ;  it  was 
the  licentious  orgies  of  Ashtoreth  and  the  splendid  rites  of 
the  Sidonian  Baal  against  the  worship  of  holiness  and  the 
severe  purity  of  the  Jewish  ritual.  But  in  the  moment  of 
her  supreme  rage  Jezebel  did  not  forget  her  cunning,  and 
she  sums  up  her  case  before  the  people  in  the  most  effect- 
ive possible  manner,  when  in  her  remarkable  recitative  she 
exclaims, "  Doth  Ahab  govern  the  kingdom  of  Israel  while 
Elijah's  power  is  greater  than  the  king's  ?"  For  popular 
purposes  it  was  not  so  much  Jehovah  against  Baal  as  Elijah 
against  Ahab ;  and  the  populace  now  side  with  the  queen 
as  readily  as  they  had  before  sided  with  Ahab  and  Elijah. 
Shouts  of"  He  shall  perish !"  rend  the  air,  and  in  the  pauses 
the  voice  of  Jezebel  is  heard  lashing  the  multitude  into  sav- 
agery with  her  scorpion  tongue.  The  popular  wrath  set- 
tles at  length  into  the  powerful  but  somewhat  unattractive 
chorus  of  "  Woe  to  him !"  rounded  off  with  a  brief  orches- 
tral close,  in  the  course  of  which  the  last  forte  is  toned 
down  into  pianissimo,  and  the  much-needed  rest  comes  in 
the  shape  of  a  beautiful  and  tender  recitative  and  melody, 
in  which  Obadiah  bids  the  prophet  hide  himself  in  the  wil- 
derness, assuring  him,  in  a  phrase  of  singular  purity  and 
elevation,  that  the  Lord  shall  go  with  him, "  and  will  never 
fail  him  nor  forsake  him."  And  yet  Elijah  was  destined 
shortly  afterward  to  feel  himself  most  forsaken. 

Sheltered  only  by  the  scanty  boughs  of  a  solitary  bush 
14&        in  the   wilderness,  alone  amid  the  inhospitable 
saken  ami   roc^s  °f  Southern  Palestine,  we  can  scarcely  pic- 
comforted.  ture  to  ourseive8  a  figure  more  utterly  forlorn. 

Faint  and  weary,  his  steadfast  spirit  for  once  sinks  within 
him.  A  great  reaction,  physical  as  well  as  mental,  now 
sets  in.  Flesh  and  blood  can  stand  only  a  certain  amount 
of  pressure,  and  Elijah's  power  of  endurance  had  been  fair- 


ELIJAH  FORSAKEN  AND  COMFORTED.  391 

ly  overwrought.  The  long  watch  upon  the  mountain,  the 
intense  emotion  of  that  silent  prayer  for  rain  in  which  the 
prophet  seemed  to  bear  in  his  heart  to  God  the  sins  and 
the  sorrows  of  a  whole  nation — the  stupendous  answer  to 
his  petition,  followed  by  the  almost  immediate  apostasy  of 
those  to  whom  it  was  granted — the  wrath  of  Jezebel,  and 
the  rapid  flight  for  life — all  this  seems  to  have  broken  down 
for  a  moment  even  the  noble  courage  and  endurance  of 
Elijah.  The  first  and  the  last  feeble  plaint  now  escapes 
him:  "It  is  enough,  O  Lord,  now  take  away  my  life." 
We  are  filled  with  reverent  sympathy  at  the  sight  of  the 
prophet's  utter  dejection.  Never,  surely,  was  there  any 
thing  conceived  in  the  language  of  sound  more  pathetic 
than  the  melody  to  which  these  words  are  set.  We  follow 
every  graduated  expression  of  the  almost  monotonous  emo- 
tion until  we  perceive  how  largely  due  to  mere  physical 
causes  is  this  apparent  spiritual  lapse.  Elijah  prays  for  the 
sleep  of  death,  but  the  recreative  sleep  of  the  body  is  all 
that  he  really  needs ;  and  presently,  in  spite  of  himself, 
overcome  with  intense  weariness  and  exhaustion,  while  his 
lips  have  hardly  ceased  to  falter  out  the  words,  "It  is 
enough  !"  he  falls  asleep  under  the  juniper-tree. 

It  is  a  sight  for  angels  to  look  upon,  and  with  the  silence 
of  the  wilderness  and  the  sore  need  of  the  prophet,  the  ce- 
lestial ministry  recommences. 

Not  less  exquisite,  though  more  brief,  and,  if  possible, 
more  perfect  than  the  angelic  chorus  in  the  first  part  ("  He 
shall  give  his  angels"),  is  the  soprano  trio, "Lift  thine  eyes 
unto  the  hills."  Happy  prophet !  to  pass  from  the  arid 
wilderness  to  such  a  dream  of  heaven,  and  to  exchange 
suddenly  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  for  the  bright 
morning  hills, "  Whence  cometh  thy  help."  No  other  vocal 
trio  with  which  we  are  acquainted  equals  this  one  in  per- 
fection of  form  and  in  the  silver-toned  ripple  of  its  un- 
broken harmony. 


302  MENDELSSOHN. 

It  was  doubtless  hard  to  follow  such  an  inspiration ;  and 
with  supreme  skill,  ere  the  prophet  awakes,  we  are  gently 
let  down  to  earth  by  a  chorus  only  a  little  less  heavenly 
than  the  matchless  trio  itself.  "  He,  watching  over  Israel," 
moves  along  with  a  certain  quiet  weaving  of  sweet  rhythm 
and  sound  which  indicates  marvelously  the  steady  and  tire- 
less vigil  of  the  heavenly  Father  over  his  frail  children  dur- 
ing the  hours  of  their  helplessness. 

Very  softly  at  last  comes  the  voice,  mingling  with,  but 
as  yet  hardly  dissipating,  the  prophet's  slumber, "  Arise, 
Elijah !"  and  very  touching  is  the  answer, "  I  have  spent 
my  strength  for  naught ;  O  that  I  might  now  die !" 

The  heavenly  music  was  reserved  for  his  dreams;  but, 
true  to  nature,  with  his  first  waking  moments  the  melody 
reproduces  the  feeling  of  profound  dejection  in  which  he 
fell  asleep,  praying  that  his  life  might  be  taken  away.  List- 
less, without  hope  or  fear,  the  disheartened  prophet,  in  pass- 
ive obedience  to  the  divine  commands,  starts  upon  his 
long  lonely  journey  of  forty  days  unto  Horeb,  the  Mount 
of  God ;  and  some  of  the  thoughts  which  in  that  pilgrim- 
age may  have  sustained  and  cheered  him  are  embodied  in 
the  contralto  song, "  O  rest  in  the  Lord,"  and  the  quiet 
chorus, "  He  that  shall  endure  unto  the  end." 

The  hearer  is  frequently  so  entranced  by  the  full  rich- 
ness of  the  melody  that  he  may  have  failed  to  notice  the 
art-concealing  art  of  one  of  the  loveliest  of  all  sacred  songs. 
The  delicate  and  minute  changes  in  a  perfectly  unlabored 
and  simple  accompaniment — the  fragments  of  tender  coun- 
ter-melody which,  without  being  obtrusive,  prevent  the 
least  monotony — the  gentle  continuity,  so  expressive  of 
sustained  and  chastened  devotion,  which  requires  less  than 
one  whole  bar  of  rest  from  the  time  the  voice  begins  to  the 
time  it  leaves  off — the  perfectly  original  and  characteristic 
coda  where,  in  the  last  two  utterances  of  the  phrase, "  0 


EARTHQUAKE  ON  MOUNT  HOREB.  393 

rest  in  the  Lord,"  the  voice  ascends  unexpectedly  to  G  in- 
stead of  descending  to  C,  and  where  the  accompaniment 
contains  a  thrilling  surprise  in  the  slurred  G  to  C  in  oc- 
taves above  the  line ;  and  finally  the  long  "  wait"  drawn 
out  through  a  semibreve  of  time,  with  an  aspiration  of  un- 
bounded confidence,  presently  to  be  resolved  into  a  deep 
and  happy  repose  of  patience — all  this,  and  much  more, 
will  come  back  to  the  memory  of  those  who  have  once 
studied  this  matchless  song. 

We  pass  over  the  grave  and  somewhat  severe  chorus, 
146  "  He  that  shall  endure  to  the  end,"  simply  remark- 
on  Mmnuke  mg  tnat  at  ^s  point  the  interest  of  the  oratorio 
seems  to  be  intentionally  diminished,  so  that  we 
are  tempted  to  think  the  action  is  again  beginning  to  drag, 
at  the  very  moment  we  are  about  to  be  restored  to  the  so- 
ciety of  the  leading  character,  and  to  assist  at  one  of  the 
most  stupendous  effects  of  dramatic  music  that  has  ever  yet 
been  realized. 

A  soft  prolonged  chord  forms  a  prelude  to  the  reappear- 
ance of  Elijah  among  the  rocky  and  cavernous  clefts  of 
Mount  Horeb.  The  night  is  falling  around  him — his  mood 
is  changed,  his  deep  depression  has  vanished.  He  is  now 
filled  with  a  passionate  desire,  not  to  die,  but  to  feel  the 
presence  of  his  God  and  be  assured  of  His  protection.  In 
such  an  aspiring  and  expectant  state  of  mind  he  hears  the 
voice  of  a  strong  angel — no  murmur  as  of  the  night  wind, 
but  distinct,  loud,  and  decisive:  "Arise  now!" — then  a 
trembling  in  the  accompaniment,  and  a  kind  of  agitation 
immediately  suppressed  into  a  whisper  full  of  awe,  with  the 
words,  "Thy  face  must  be  veiled,"  prepares  us  for  the  dread 
announcement  in  a  single  bar  of  unaccompanied  recitative 
— "  For  He  draweth  nigh  !"  With  a  burst  like  that  of  a 
sudden  earthquake,  the  chorus,"  Behold  God  the  Lord  pass- 


304  MENDELSSOHN. 

ed  by,"  comes  upon  us ;  but  the  forte  is  almost  instantly 
suppressed,  like  fire  that  tries  to  escape.  As  when  we 
watch  the  almost  silent  working  of  some  monstrous  engine 
whose  force  is  nevertheless  sufficient  to  crush  the  strongest 
fabric  to  atoms,  we  feel  the  presence  of  a  power  in  all  that 
immense  repression — something  latent  in  the  noiseless  mo- 
tion of  the  wheel  which  makes  the  inexorable  swiftness  of 
its  revolutions  all  the  more  imposing,  so  the  same  kind  of 
emotional  effect  is  produced  by  Mendelssohn's  use  ofpp's 
in  such  words  as  "  A  mighty  wind  rent  the  mountains !" 
Great  and  glorious  gusts  of  sound  burst  forth  almost  di- 
rectly afterward,  and  the  crescendo  increases  with  the  throes 
of  the  earthquake  until  shock  after  shock  subsides  with  a 
diminuendo,  leaving  us  each  time  breathless  with  the  an- 
ticipation of  what  is  about  to  follow. 

What  follows  is  so  unexpected  in  the  elevation  of  its  har- 
monic temperature,  that  we  have  known  persons  in  a  state 
of  rapt  excitement,  upon  hearing  this  chorus  for  the  first 
time,  break  out  into  a  cold  sweat  at  the  words,  smitten  like 
tongues  of  fire  from  the  rocks, "  But  the  Lord  was  not  in 
the  tempest !" 

The  mere  excitement  of  watching  for  the  recurrence  of 
this  thrilling  major  phrase  makes  each  stormy  interval  full 
of  new  interest.  Every  time  it  recurs  on  a  different  note — 
"  But  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake" — "  But  the  Lord 
was  not  in  the  fire" — which  last  major,  before  it  brings  the 
series  to  a  close,  is  carried  on  with  a  reiteration  so  urgent 
and  absorbing  as  to  impress  the  mind  with  the  thought  of 
a  soul  seized  with  a  divine  frenzy  to  see  God,  and  in  almost 
a  terror  of  anguish  at  finding  the  wind,  and  the  earthquake, 
and  the  fire  pass  without  any  definite  discovery  of  the  Di- 
vine Presence.  So  near  the  absolute  beatific  vision,  and  yet 
no  vision !  The  earthquake,  and  the  tempest,  and  the  blaze 
of  the  lightning,  and  yet  no  voice,  for  "  The  Lord  was  not 
in  the  fire !" 


ELIJAH  IS  TAKEN  UP  INTO  HEA  YEN.  395 

As  the  last  wild  and  nearly  distracted  cry  dies  away 
there  comes  very  softly  one  of  those  magic  changes  in 
which  the  whole  of  the  emotional  atmosphere  shifts — the 
cry  of  the  spirit  is  going  to  be  answered  with  a  gentleness 
and  a  power  above  all  that  it  could  ask  or  think.  The 
key  changes  from  one  to  four  sharps,  and  the  words,  "Aft- 
er the  fire  there  came  a  still,  small  voice,"  then  follow,  with 
a  peace  and  majesty  of  the  most  ineffable  sweetness,  "And 
in  that  still,  small  voice  onward  came  the  Lord."  The  mel- 
ody flows  on  in  the  clear  and  silver  key  of  E  major :  it 
passes  like  the  sweeping  by  of  a  soft  and  balmy  wind, 
never  rising,  never  falling,  but  gentle,  and  strong,  and 
pulseless,  coming  we  know  not  whence,  and  passing  with 
the  "  tides  of  music's  golden  sea"  into  eternity.  And  as 
the  last  delicate  strains  of  the  accompaniment  die  away, 
we  are  left  still  looking  up  to  heaven  with  senses  enrap- 
tured and  purified  like  those  who  have  stood  beside  the 
gates  of  pearl  and  seen  the  King  "  in  his  beauty." 

The  recitative  and  chorus  following, "  Above  him  stood 
the  Seraphim,"  and  "  Holy,  holy,"  develop  the  memory  of 
this  blessed  vision,  while  the  outburst  of  earthly  praise  at 
the  close  prepares  us  for  the  more  commonplace  scenery 
of  this  lower  world,  where  we  are  allowed  to  rest  a  while 
before  the  final  scene  of  the  sacred  drama. 

Once  more,  and  for  the  last  time,  Elijah  sets  out  upon 
147        his  solitary  way,  but  now  he  is  sustained  by  an 
ken^into"  unfaltering  trust.     No  more  suffering,  no  more 
aeaven.       persecution,  no  more  faintness  or  weariness ;  he 
is  filled  through  and  through  with  a  sense  of  the  divine 
presence,  and  bears  the  light  of  God's  splendor  upon  his 
countenance.     The  quiet  arioso  andante," For  the  moun- 
tains shall  depart,"  is  thrown  in  skillfully,  to  recreate  the 
mind  after  the  extreme  tension  to  which  it  has  so  lately 
20 


306  MENDELSSOHN. 

been  held,  and  to  prepare  it  for  a  second  climax  of  equal 
greatness  and  solemnity. 

Nothing  can  be  finer  than  what  we  may  call  the  trans- 
figuration of  Elijah  before  his  departure. 

When  we  come  upon  him  for  the  last  time,  he  is  more 
imposing  than  ever — more  terrible  than  when  he  first  met 
Ahab  in  the  way,  more  majestic  than  when  he  stood  upon 
Carmel  alone  before  the  altar  of  the  true  God. 

We  are  permitted  to  see  him  thus  only  for  a  few  mo- 
ments in  the  chorus, "  Then  did  Elijah  the  prophet  break 
forth  like  a  fire."  Not  in  vain  had  he  been  upon  the  Holy 
Mount  and  seen  the  Lord  pass  by ;  not  in  vain  had  the 
earthquake  rent  the  rocks  at  his  feet  and  the  sky  been 
changed  into  a  sheet  of  living  flame ;  the  tempest  and  the 
flame  seem  in  a  manner  to  have  passed  into  his  being ;  and 
the  whole  man  was  growing  almost  elemental  as  he  was 
about  to  enter  into  the  presence  of  his  God.  Those  who 
met  with  him  were  stricken  with  awe  at  his  appearance, 
and  marked  how  "  his  words  appeared  like  burning  torch- 
es ;"  then  remembered  they  how  he  had  "  heard  the  judg- 
ments of  the  future  and  seen  the  vengeance  of  God  in 
Horeb." 

The  action  from  this  point  becomes  almost  intolerably 
rapid ;  indeed,  it  is  wonderful  how  the  mind  has  been  ena- 
bled to  bear  another  climax  in  so  short  a  time. 

But  it  was  doubtless  impossible  to  put  off  the  last  scene 
any  longer.  We  feel  that  the  beloved  but  terrible  prophet 
is  already  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  another  world,  and 
has  well-nigh  done  with  this  earth. 

Abruptly,  in  a  moment,  the  phrase,"  And  when  the  Lord 
would  take  him  away  to  heaven,"  is  heard ;  first  from  a 
solitary  bass  voice,  then  from  a  rushing  and  impetuous 
chorus,  as  of  a  multitude  who  see  the  heavens  opened  be- 
fore them,  and  answer  with  a  frantic  shout  of  mingled  ter- 


A  PERFECT  CLOSE.  30f 

ror  and  adoration.  A  brief  pause,  and  the  chariot  and 
horses  of  fire  are  there,  and  black  clouds  hurled  about  by 
a  whirlwind,  and  flashes  of  intolerable  radiance  and  mighty 
thunderings — and  Elijah  has  passed. 

"  He  went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heaven." 

All  through  this  rending  of  sky,  and  cloud,  and  terror  of 
blinding  flame,  the  tension  on  the  mind,  produced  by  the 
accompaniment  of  incessant  triplets  in  semiquavers,  sup- 
ported by  a  magnificent  pedal  bass  of  chords  and  octaves, 
is  so  great  that  we  lose  all  account  of  the  time  taken  by 
the  whirlwind.  It  is,  however,  very  considerable,  as  a 
glance  at  the  score  will  show  us,  and  accordingly  produces 
an  adequate  and  massive  impression,  suitable  to  the  au- 
gust and  miraculous  nature  of  the  event.  The  last  long 
"  Whirl — wind"  on  a  minim  is  but  one  more  instance  of 
Mendelssohn's  inexhaustible  command  of  effects  at  the 
moment  when  he  seems  to  have  strained  our  powers  of 
endurance  to  the  utmost,  and  exhausted  every  combination 
of  sound. 

Few  composers  would  have  attempted  to  produce,  at  no 
148.      great  distance  from  each  other,  in  one  and  the 

A  perfect  ,         .  ,  TT        . 

close.  same  part,  two  such  crises  as  the  scene  on  Horeb 
and  the  Fiery  Ascension;  but  surely  none  but  the  very 
finest  genius  would  have  resisted  the  temptation  of  closing 
the  oratorio  with  this  last  scene.  But  Mendelssohn  has 
had  the  courage  to  despise  mere  sensation  for  the  sake  of 
perfection,  and  has  thus  here,  as  elsewhere,  asserted  his 
claim  to  join  hands  with  Handel,  Mozart,  and  Beethoven. 

Steadily  through  the  glare  of  light  which  at  once  trans- 
ports and  dazzles  us  does  this  great  oratorio  "orb  into  the 
perfect  star  we  saw  not  when  we  moved  therein."  The  bad 
art  of  leaving  off  with  a  shock  finds  no  favor  with  so  com- 


808  MENDELSSOHN. 

plete  an  artist  as  Mendelssohn,  and  his  greatness  is  never 
more  felt  than  in  the  incomparable  richness  of  the  music 
from  the  time  when  all  scenic  effect  is  over,  and  all  dra- 
matic action  has  ceased. 

At  the  close  of  some  refulgent  summer  day,  when  the  sun 
has  set,  darkness  does  not  immediately  take  possession  of 
the  earth;  the  sky  still  pulses  with  pale  light,  and  long 
crimson  streaks  incarnadine  the  west.  Then,  as  we  watch, 
the  colors  change  and  flicker,  thin  spikes  of  almost  impal- 
pable radiance  shoot  upward  through  the  after-glow,  and 
with  celestial  alchemy  turn  many  a  gray  cloud  into  gold. 
The  rising  mists  are  caught  and  melted  capriciously  into 
violet  and  ruby  flame ;  and  as  the  eye,  still  dazzled  with 
the  sun,  traverses  the  deserted  heavens,  the  prospect  is  no 
doubt  more  peaceful  than  when  the  fiery  globe  was  there 
— more  peaceful,  for  the  cold  twilight  grows  apace,  and  the 
eye  is  gradually  cooled  as  it  gazes  upon  the  fading  fires, 
until  at  last  the  subtle  essences  of  the  night  have  toned  all 
down  into  a  calm  monotint  of  gray  and  passionless  repose. 

The  conclusion  of  the  Elijah  is  like  the  splendor  and  the 
peace  of  such  a  sunset.  The  day-star  is  indeed  gone,  but 
•all  things  are  still  impregnated  with  his  glory,  and  not  un- 
til every  gradation  of  color  has  been  traversed  are  we  suf- 
fered to  rest  from  our  contemplations,  and  drink  deep,  as  it 
were,  from  the  cool  cisterns  of  the  silent  night. 

From  the  time  of  Elijah's  departure  we  notice  a  prepon- 
derance of  clear  refreshing  majors,  which  make  us  feel  aware 
that  we  are  coming  to  the  end  of  our  journey — just  as  the 
odor  of  brine  from  the  ocean  tells  the  traveler  that  he  is 
approaching  the  sea-shore.  The  great  tenor  song,  "  Then 
shall  the  righteous  shine,"  which  falls  as  out  of  high  heav- 
en, like  the  clarion  shout  of  an  angel,  is  in  the  major ;  so 
is  the  chorus,  "  But  the  Lord  ;"  so  is  the  delicious  quartet, 
"  O  come  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  to  the  waters  j" 


A  PERFECT  CLOSE.  309 

and  so  also  is  the  final  chorus,  "  And  then  shall  your  light 
break  forth  as  the  light  of  the  morning  !" 

The  one  recitative  which  occurs  gives  a  curious  theolog- 
ical twist  to  the  close  by  working  in  an  allusion  to  Elijah's 
second  advent  as  the  forerunner  of  Messiah ;  indeed,  we 
may  call  the  quartet,  "  O  come  every  one,"  strictly  Messi- 
anic. It  is  as  if  Mendelssohn  felt  the  incompleteness  of 
the  grandest  revelation  in  the  Old  Testament  apart  from 
the  New,  and  wished  to  give  his  hearers  at  least  a  hint  of 
the  Christian  dispensation,  a  subject  which  he  would,  no 
doubt,  have  developed  had  he  lived  to  complete  his  unfin- 
ished oratorio  of  Christies.  Some  people  complain  of  the 
last  chorus  as  dull  and  needlessly  protracted.  But  the 
more  we  study  the  ^Elijah,  the  more  we  perceive  that  this 
chorus  is  necessary,  and  in  its  place  at  the  end.  It  is  quite 
regular,  and  even  somewhat  mechanical,  and  it  leaves  the 
mind  in  an  atmosphere  at  once  severe  and  tranquil.  That 
is  a  very  high  level  of  conception  for  the  closing  treatment 
of  so  majestic  a  subject,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  improve 
upon  it  without  fatally  destroying  the  musical  morality  as 
well  as  the  artistic  beauty  of  the  work. 

The  Elijah  destroyed  Mendelssohn.  It  was  produced  for 
the  first  time  at  the  Birmingham  Festival  in  1846,  when 
Mendelssohn  himself  conducted,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  excitement  and  incessant  toil  incident  upon 
so  great  an  undertaking  largely  helped  to  shatter  a  frame 
already  enfeebled  by  excessive  mental  exertion. 

On  the  4th  of  November,  1847,  Felix  Mendelssohn  Bar- 
tholdy  died  at  Leipsic,  before  he  had  completed  his  thirty- 
ninth  year. 


KND   OP  THE   SECOND   BOOK. 


Book. 
INSTRUMENTAL. 

VIOLINS,  PIANO  -FOKTES,  BELLS,  AND 
CARILLONS. 


fttjirfc  Book. 
VIOLINS. 


L 

I  HAVE  never  been  able  to  class  violins  with  other  instru- 
149  ments.  They  seem  to  possess  a  quality  and  char- 
Introduction.  acter  Of  their  own.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
template a  fine  old  violin  without  something  like  awe ;  to 
think  of  the  scenes  it  has  passed  through  long  before  we 
were  born,  and  the  triumphs  it  will  win  long  after  we  are 
dead ;  to  think  of  the  numbers  who  have  played  on  it,  and 
loved  it  as  a  kind  of  second  soul  of  their  own ;  of  all  who 
have  been  thrilled  by  its  sensitive  vibrations;  the  great 
works  of  genius  which  have  found  in  it  a  willing  inter- 
preter; the  brilliant  festivals  it  has  celebrated;  the  soli- 
tary hours  it  has  beguiled ;  the  pure  and  exalted  emotions 
it  has  been  kindling  for  perhaps  two  hundred  years ;  and 
then  to  reflect  upon  its  comparative  indestructibility !  Or- 
gans are  broken  up,  their  pipes  are  redistributed,  and  their 
identity  destroyed;  horns  are  battered  and  broken,  and  get 
out  of  date ;  flutes  have  undergone  all  kinds  of  modifica- 
tions ;  clarionets  are  things  of  yesterday ;  harps  warp  and 
rot ;  piano-fortes  are  essentially  short-lived ;  but  the  sturdy 
violin  outlasts  them  all.  If  it  gets  cracked,  you  can  glue  it 


314  VIOLINS. 

up ;  if  it  gets  bruised,  you  can  patch  it  almost  without  in- 
jury ;  you  can  take  it  to  pieces  from  time  to  time,  strength- 
en and  put  it  together  again,  and  even  if  it  gets  smashed 
it  can  often  be  repaired  without  losing  its  individuality, 
and  not  unfrequently  comes  home  from  the  workshop  bet- 
ter than  ever,  and  prepared  to  take  a  new  lease  of  life  for 
at  least  ninety-nine  years. 

These  and  similar  thoughts  forced  themselves  upon  me 
as  I  found  myself  some  time  ago  in  the  quaint  old  work- 
shop of  one  of  the  most  gifted  violin-makers  of  the  age.  It 
might  have  been  the  house  of  Stradiuarius  at  Cremona  in 
1720.  Violins  lay  around  us  in  every  possible  stage  of  com' 
position  and  decomposition — new  violins  made  with  loving 
care  by  the  keen  workman  who  would  never  hear  them  in 
their  maturity ;  old  violins  that  had  somehow  got  wrong, 
and  which  had  to  be  kept  like  watches  until  they  went 
right;  violins  suffering  from  the  "wolf;"  others  bruised 
and  dilapidated ;  sick  violins,  with  their  bellies*  off;  oth- 
ers, equally  indisposed,  waiting  to  have  their  backs  put  on ; 
a  vast  number  without  any  heads,  several  waiting  for  ribs, 
and  piles  and  piles  of  what  we  may  call  violin-bones,  con- 
sisting of  various  pieces  of  hundreds  of  instruments  of  all 
ages,  waiting  to  be  made  up  at  the  discretion  of  the  ar- 
tificer into  violins  of  no  particular  age.  The  dim  light 
came  in  through  one  window  upon  those  relics  of  the  past. 
The  sun  seemed  to  have  subdued  himself  for  the  occasion. 
A  stronger  glare,  I  felt,  would  have  affronted  the  dusky 
browns  and  sober  tints  of  that  old-fashioned  workshop. 

Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day,  nor  was  the  violin  the  in- 
iso.       vention  of  any  one  man  or  age.     Like  the  piano, 

Oriein  of  * 

th«  violin,  its  elements  may  be  said  to  have  come  together 

from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.    They  appear  to  have 

*  Technical  term  for  the  front  of  the  instrument. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  VIOLIN.  315 

been  combined  in  every  possible  proportion,  until  endless 
experiments  and  the  most  grotesque  forms  resulted  at 
length  in  the  singularly  perfect  and  exquisitely  simple  in- 
strument known  as  the  Cremona  violin,  which  no  time 
seems  likely  to  impair,  and  no  art  seems  able  to  improve. 
As  we  look  with  a  certain  interest  at  the  earliest  daubs  of 
a  great  painter,  or  compare  the  wooden  huts  of  a  barbarous 
age  with  the  stately  edifices  of  our  own,  so  we  may  be  al- 
lowed to  recall  for  a  moment  those  rough  early  forms  which 
have  contributed  their  several  elements  to  the  violin. 

If  I  were  writing  a  treatise  in  the  German  style,  I  should 
be  prepared  to  show  how,  at  some  remote  period  before  the 
dawrn  of  history,  the  great  European  races  migrated  from 
India,  passing  through  Bactria,  Persia,  Arabia,  and  Arme- 
nia, and,  crossing  the  Hellespont,  overflowed  Roumelia, 
Wallachia,  Croatia,  Styria,  and  Bohemia,  then,  stretching 
away  to  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine,  proceeded  to  people 
all  Gaul  under  the  name  of  Celt,  from  whence,  as  we  all 
know,  they  crossed  over  to  Britain ;  and  then,  after  prov- 
ing that  the  Chrotta  Britanna  was  an  instrument  common 
to  both  Gaul  and  Britain,  I  should  show,  by  a  comparison 
between  the  instruments  now  in  use  in  India  and  those 
played  on  by  the  ancient  Europeans,  that  the  Indo-Celtic 
race  must  certainly  have  transported  the  first  rough  model 
westward  from  the  East.  But  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
true,  if  not  quite  so  learned,  to  say  that  the  principle  of  a 
string  stretched  on  wood  and  set  in  vibration  by  horsehair 
or  some  kind  of  fibre  has  been  known  time  out  of  mind  by 
almost  every  nation  in  the  world ;  and  as  we  are  now  con- 
cerned only  with  the  modern  violin,  I  must  beg  leave  to 
make  short  work  with  the  savants,  and  confine  the  read- 
er's attention  to  what  I  may  call  its  three  roots,  e.  g. : 

The  Rebek,  or  lute-shaped  instrument,  with  one  or  three 
strings ;  the  Growth,  or  long  box-shaped  instrument,  with 


316  VIOLINS. 

six  or  more  strings  (in  both  these  the  strings  are  supported 
by  bridges  and  played  with  bows,  as  in  the  violin) ;  and, 
lastly,  the  Rotta,  or  kind  of  guitar,  without  a  bridge  or 
bow,  and  played  by  the  fingers. 

In  a  MS.  of  the  ninth  century  we  have  a  drawing  of 
the  rebek,  although  it  was  probably  known  as  early  as  the 
sixth.  The  crouth  is  somewhat  later;  we  have  no  repre- 
sentation of  it  earlier  than  the  eleventh  century.  It  was 
an  improved  form  of  the  rebek,  but  it  does  not  appear  to 
have  superseded  it  for  many  centuries.  The  last  player  on 
the  crouth  was  a  Welshman,  whose  name  was,  of  course, 
Morgan — John  Morgan.  He  lived  in  the  Isle  of  Anglesea, 
and  died  about  1720.  The  rebek  was  by  far  the  ruder  in- 
strument of  the  two,  and  became  extinct  at  a  somewhat 
earlier  date.  It  was  the  instrument  of  the  people,  and  war 
rasped  at  every  fair  and  tournament.  It  found  little  favo 
with  either  monks  or  nobles,  who  are  usually  represented 
playing  on  the  more  aristocratic  crouth.  It  stood  in  some- 
what the  same  relation  to  the  latter  as  the  accordion  does 
to  the  concertina.  The  rotta  may  be  thought  of  simply 
as  a  form  of  guitar.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  all 
these  three  instruments  were  constantly  undergoing  mod- 
ifications in  size  and  shape ;  that  some  rebeks  had  but  one 
string,  some  crouths  three  or  six,  some  rottas  as  many  as 
seventeen. 

And  now,  if  the  reader  wishes  to  know  how  the  violin 
arose  out  of  this  medley,  adopting  various  items  in  the 
composition  of  each  of  the  above  instruments,  and  adding 
a  something  of  its  own  which  bound  these  scattered  hints 
of  substance,  and  shape,  and  sound  into  a  higher  unity,  we 
advise  him  to  take  a  good  look  at  Figs.  1, 2,  and  3,  and  then 
accompany  us  through  the  following  brief  analysis. 

In  the  rebek  (Fig.  1,  p.  318)  we  get  the  rounded  form 
pierced  with  two  slits  to  let  the  sound  out,  which  we  also 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  VIOLIN.  317 

find  in  the  upper  part  of  the  front  of  a  violin.  We  have  a 
bridge,  a  tail-piece,  and  screws,  with  doubtless  a  sound-post 
inside  to  resist  the  thrust  of  the  bridge  upon  the  front  or 
belly.  We  also  note  that  a  box  for  the  screws  and  the 
shape  of  the  head  come  from  the  rebek,  and  not  from  the 
crouth. 

From  the  crouth  (Fig.  2)  we  get  the  important  detail  of 
the  back  and  the  belly  joined  by  sides.  This  principle  of 
two  vibrating  surfaces  joined  by  what  we  call  ribs  or  sides 
was  an  immense  step  forward,  as  will  be  presently  seen. 
The  shape  of  the  tail-piece  was  nearly  the  same  as  in  our 
violins. 

From  the  rotta,  or,  speaking  more  generally,  from  the 
guitar  tribe,  came  the  suggestion  of  the  two  curves  inward 
in  the  sides,  and  the  semicircular  curve  of  lower  part  to 
correspond  with  the  top.  From  the  guitar  tribe  we  also 
get  the  elongated  neck  made  separate  from  the  body  of 
the  instrument,  and  ultimately  the  six  frets  on  the  finger- 
board, now  happily  abolished,  which  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  marred  the  perfection  of  the  violin. 

We  have  now  an  instrument  of  the  viol  tribe  something 
like  this  (Fig.  3),  which  we  may  place  roughly  in  the  twelfth 
century.  Although  to  the  inexperienced  it  may  look  some- 
thing like  a  violin,  the  most  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  that 
it  contains  only  those  elements  of  the  violin  which  that  in- 
strument has  borrowed  from  the  rebek,  crouth,  and  rotta, 
and  still  lacks  the  characteristics  which  constitute  the 
violin  proper,  and  raise  it  above  the  whole  race  of  the  old 
viols. 

About  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  at  the  dawn  of 
scientific  music,  viols  were  made  in  great  profusion :  the 
number  of  strings  does  not  appear  to  have  been  fixed,  and 
ranged  from  three  to  six  or  more.  About  this  time  it  was 
noticed  that  human  voices  might  be  divided  into  four  class- 


l.Kebek.          2.  Crouth.          3.  Transition  Instrument.          4.  Violin,  Bow.  and  Bridge 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  VIOLIN.  319 

es — soprano,  contralto,  tenor,  and  bass — and  in  the  light  of 
this  discovery  we  soon  find  viols  divided  into  the  quartet, 
e.  g.y  violette,  alto,  tenor,  and  bass.  We  shall  probably 
never  know  all  the  curious  shapes  and  sizes  of  viols  which 
were  made  between  the  twelfth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 
Large  quantities  have  perished,  others  have  been  used  up 
for  violins.  The  lute-makers  were  constantly  trying  ex- 
periments. We  find  instruments  which  it  is  difficult  to 
class  at  all,  others  that  early  went  out  of  fashion,  while  the 
most  recognized  forms  were  hardly  fixed,  and  were  contin- 
ually being  modified,  altered,  or  added  to.  As  music  grew, 
so  did  the  rage  for  viols,  and  it  is  owing  partly  to  the 
quantities  made  and  partly  to  the  caprice  of  the  makers, 
partly  to  the  waste  and  ruin  of  time,  that  it  becomes  diffi- 
cult to  trace  in  detail  the  steps  from  the  rough  viol  to  the 
violin,  until  we  suddenly  find  this  latter,  about  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  occupying  a  modest  position  in 
the  midst  of  that  host  of  viols  which  it  was  destined  to 
supersede  forever.  But  the  violin  with  four  strings,  and 
tuned  as  at  present,  continued  for  a  few  years  in  obscurity. 
In  a  concise  Italian  catalogue  (printed  in  1601)  of  viols 
then  in  use, it  is  not  once  mentioned;  and  in  1607,  when 
two  were  certainly  used  in  Monteverde's  opera  of  Orfeo, 
played  at  Mantua,  they  are  alluded  to  as  "  two  little  French 
violins,"  which  seems  to  indicate  that  the  French  makers 
first  discovered  this  modification  of  the  viol.  In  1620,  Mi 
chad  Praetorius,  in  the  Theatrum  Instrumentorum,  publish^ 
ed  at  Wolfenbuttel,  gives  us  an  undoubted  picture  of  an 
instrument  which  is  none  other  than  the  violin.  And  now, 
if  the  reader  will  glance  from  Fig.  3  to  4,  he  will  at  once 
see  how  the  mongrel  of  the  twelfth  century  was  transform- 
ed through  a  course  of  successive  developments  into  the 
violin  of  the  sixteenth.  The  flat  guitar-front  is  changed 
for  the  raised  belly,  the  smooth  curves  of  the  sides  are  bro- 


320  VIOLINS. 

ken  into  four  corners* — a  form  which  was  found  better  to 
resist  the  strain  of  the  bridge,  and  also  allows  a  freer  action 
of  the  bow.  The  slits  in  the  shape  of  £  J^'s  take  the  place 
of  the  C  ")'s ;  the  handle,  instead  of  being  flat  and  wide,  is 
narrow  and  rounded ;  the  finger-board  is  raised,  and  reach- 
es over  the  curve  of  the  belly,  instead  of  being  in  the  same 
plane  with  the  flat  guitar  front ;  and  the  guitar  frets  are 
abolished.  Soon  after  we  meet  with  the  tenor  viol  and 
double  bass,  all  built  on  the  same  model ;  and  the  constel- 
lation of  "  The  Violin,"  suddenly  detaching  itself  from  the 
confused  nebulae  of  the  violas,  shines  out  brightly  in  the 
musical  firmament. 

The  violin  has  four  strings  tuned  in  the  treble  clef;  the 
first  is  E  between  the  lines,  the  second  A  between  the  lines, 
the  third  D  under  the  lines,  and  the  fourth  string  G  under 
the  lines.  The  natural  compass  is  from  G  under  the  lines 
to  B  above  the  lines ;  but  by  shifting  the  hand  up  the  fin- 
ger-board—  a  practice  unknown  to  the  viol-player  —  the 
compass  may  be  almost  indefinitely  increased.  The  first 
three  strings  are  made  of  thin  gut,  the  fourth  of  gut  cov- 
ered with  silver  wire.  The  bow  is  strung  with  horsehair, 
powdered  with  rosin,  which  readily  bites  the  strings  and 
keeps  them  in  vibration. 

Whether  the  violin  model  came  from  France  or  Italy,  it 
151  is  indebted  to  Italy,  and  to  Italy  alone,  for  its 

Sni,°an|ai°e  rise  and  progress.  If  it  was  a  French  seed,  it 
Amatis-  early  floated  away  from  its  native  land  to  take 

root  and  flourish  in  Italian  soil.  There  were  great  lute 
schools  at  Brescia  as  early  as  1450,  and  viols  were  fabrica- 

*  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  seen  a  drawing  of  a  capital  in  the  Ab- 
bey S.  George  de  Boscherville,  near  Rouen,  containing  a  viol  with  sides 
broken  into  four  corners.  1006  is  the  date.  I  believe  this  to  be  a  singu- 
lar curiosity. 


GASPARO  DI  SALO,  ETC.  321 

ted  in  large  quantities  somewhat  later  at  Venice,  Bologna, 
and  Mantua.  But  it  was  in  the  workshop  of  GASPARO  DI 
SALO  that  the  first  Italian  violin  was  probably  made.  Like 
almost  all  the  great  violin-makers,  he  lived  to  an  advanced 
age,  and  died,  after  fifty  good  years  of  work,  in  the  town 
of  Brescia.  A  violin  of  his  is  extant  dated  1566,  and  an- 
other dated  1613.  He  found  at  least  one  great  pupil  in 
Jean  Paul  Magini  (1590-1640) — not  to  be  confounded  with 
Santo  Magini,  a  celebrated  double-bass  maker  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  Magini  violins  closely  resemble  those 
of  Gasparo  di  Salo.  The  sides  are  narrow,  the  arch  of  the 
belly  is  high,  and  extends  almost  up  to  the  sides ;  the  in- 
strument is  strongly  built ;  the  varnish,  of  a  yellowish  light 
brown,  is  very  pure  and  of  an  excellent  quality.  The  tone 
is  like  that  of  a  powerful  violin  muffled.  It  is,  however, 
much  more  sonorous  than  the  older  viols. 

Passing  by  such  inferior  makers  as  Antonino  Mariani, 
Juvietta  Budiana  and  Matteo  Bente,  both  of  Brescia,  we 
come  to  the  illustrious  founder  of  the  Cremona  School, 
ANDREUS  AMATI.  When  and  where  he  was  born,  and  who 
were  his  masters,  we  can  not  say  with  certainty.  What  is 
certain  is  that  he  worked  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  set  up  a  manufactory  of  his  own  at  Cremona 
— some  say,  after  having  studied  in  the  old  Brescia  school 
of  Magini.  A  large  number  of  his  finest  violins  disappear- 
ed from  Versailles  after  the  5th  and  6th  of  October,  1 790. 
These  instruments  had  been  the  property  of  Charles  IX., 
nrho  seems  to  have  been  a  great  fiddler. 

Like  all  the  cabinet  instruments  of  the  day,  spinets, 
lutes,  theorbos,  mandores,  and  guitars,  the  violins  of  An- 
drew Amati  are  not  loud — a  loud  violin  would  have  killed 
the  other  instruments,  and  grated  on  ears  only  accustomed 
to  the  feeble  twanging  of  old  viols,  and  faint  tinkle  of  the 
ancestors  of  the  harpsichord  and  piano-forte.  The  Andrew 
21 


322  VIOLINS. 

Amatis  are  usually  a  little  smaller  than  the  Maginis,  much 
raised  toward  the  centre,  finely  worked  throughout,  and 
thickly  varnished  light  brown ;  the  sound  is  soft  and  clear. 

His  two  sons,  JEROME  and  ANTONIUS  AMATI,  inherited 
their  father's  workshop  and  genius  in  1580.  They  seem  to 
have  worked  together,  and  those  instruments  which  were 
the  results  of  their  united  efforts  are  the  finest.  They  are 
highly  vaulted  in  front,  deeply  scooped  out  on  either  side 
of  the  vaults,  the  wood  is  chosen  with  great  care,  the 
workmanship  is  exquisitely  smooth,  they  have  not  much 
power,  the  first  and  second  strings  are  sweet  and  delicate, 
the  third  a  little  dull,  and  the  fourth  disproportionately 
weak.  About  1635  Antonius  died.  Jerome  married,  and, 
although  some  of  his  instruments  are  equal  in  workman- 
ship to  the  earlier  ones  made  conjointly  with  his  brother, 
those  made  after  the  death  of  Antonius  are,  as  a  rule,  in- 
ferior. 

NICOLAS,  son  of  Jerome,  born  1596,  was  the  greatest  of 
the  Amatis.  The  superior  grace  and  elegance  of  his  forms 
at  once  strike  the  practiced  eye.  The  curves  are  less  ab- 
rupt and  more  carefully  studied,  the  proportions  more 
subtle  and  harmonious,  the  varnish  is  plentiful,  soft,  and 
glossy.  A  few  extant  violins,  which  have  been  worked 
out  with  a  truly  astonishing  labor  of  love,  are  of  indescrib- 
able beauty  and  finish.  M.  Allard,  the  eminent  French  vi- 
olinist, possesses  one  of  them.  Another  perfect  gem,  bear- 
ing date  1668,  belonged  to  Count  Cozio.  With  great 
sweetness  and  evenness  of  tone  they  unite  a  certain  clear, 
unmuffled  brilliancy  prophetic  of  the  last  achievements  of 
the  art. 

The  second  JEKOME,  the  last  of  this  great  family,  is  in  no 
wise  remarkable  except  for  the  mediocrity  of  the  instru- 
ments which  he  has  labeled  with  the  great  name  of  AMATI. 
To  the  school  of  Nicolas  Amati  belongs  the  illustrious  Jo- 


STRADIUARIUS.  323 

seph  Guarnerius,  whose  genius  and  originality  might  well 
entitle  him  to  a  separate  biographical  notice ;  but  the 
Amatis  and  all  their  associates  pale  before  the  one  great 
name  which  is  forever  associated  with  Cremona,  ANTONIUS 
STRADIUARIUS.  We  have  now  traversed  just  one  hundred 
years  from  Gasparo  di  Salo  to  Stradiuarius.  One  after  an- 
other, quality  after  quality  had  been  discovered.  Gasparo 
and  Magini  determined  the  main  outline  and  build,  and 
produced  a  new  tone  essentially  superior  to  that  of  the  old 
viols,  though  still  somewhat  dull  and  muffled.  The  Ama- 
tis and  J.  Guarnerius  brought  the  workmanship  near  to 
perfection,  improved  the  proportions,  and  produced  a  clear, 
soft  tone  of  silvery  sweetness.  It  remained  for  one  master 
mind  at  this  propitious  crisis  to  step  in  and  unite  to  the 
softness  and  brilliancy  of  his  predecessors  a  powerful  depth 
and  body  of  sound  entirely  his  own. 

The  rise  of  music  in  Italy  and  the  perfection  of  the  great 
152  violin  schools  closely  followed  the  rise  and  per- 
stradiuarins.  fectjon  of  Italian  painting.  It  was  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century  that  all  the  elements  of  the 
art  which  had  existed  apart  from  each  other  began  to 
come  together :  the  study  of  anatomy  and  chiaroscuro 
from  Florence  and  Padua,  richness  of  color  from  Venice, 
reverence  for  ideal  beauty  from  Umbria.  It  was  toward 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  that  one  great  maker 
gathered  up  in  himself  the  perfections  of  all  his  predeces- 
sors, and  bequeathed  to  modern  ears,  in  tonal  splendor,  de- 
lights analogous  to  those  which  the  noblest  painters  have 
left  us  in  form  and  colors.  Like  the  rapid  perfection  of 
Greek  sculpture  under  Pericles,  or  the  sudden  blossoming 
of  Italian  art  under  Pope  Julius  II.,  so,  at  the  close  of  one 
short  century,  broke  into  perfect  bloom  the  flower  of  the 
Cremonese  school.  ANTONIUS  STRADIUARIUS  stands  crown- 


324  VIOLINS. 

ed  the  monarch  of  his  art,  the  Phidias  or  the  Raphael  of 
the  violin. 

This  remarkable  man  was  born  in  1644.  There  could 
be  but  one  master  for  Stradiuarius — the  great  Nicolas 
Amati.  The  highest  genius  is  often  the  most  impressiona- 
ble in  its  early  stages,  and  we  should  never  be  surprised 
to  find  it  engaged  for  a  time  simply  in  reflecting  with  ut- 
ter devotion  and  the  most  perfect  fidelity  the  highest 
known  types.  The  early  pictures  of  Raphael  are  scarcely 
distinguished  from  the  later  productions  of  Perugino ; 
Beethoven's  first  strains  remind  us  forcibly  of  Mozart ; 
and  the  first  violins  made  by  Stradiuarius,  from  1667  to 
1670,  are  not  only  exact  copies  of  Amati,  but  are  actually 
labeled  with  his  name.  Little  is  known  about  the  great 
pupil,  but  that  little  exhibits  to  us  a  man  who  never  had 
but  one  ambition — who  without  haste,  but  also  without 
rest,  labored  for  the  perfection  of  the  violin.  He  took  his 
time  to  watch,  to  listen,  to  test,  and  to  ponder,  waiting 
frequently  years  for  his  results,  and  accounting  failure  oft- 
entimes as  precious  as  success.  To  him  the  world  was 
nothing  but  one  vast  workshop.  On  the  western  slopes 
'of  the  Swiss  mountains  there  were  fair  forests  of  maple 
and  willow.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  he  ever  saw 
them,  but  they  grew  good  wood  for  violins.  The  sun  of 
Lombardy  beat  fiercely  down  on  the  white  marble  dust  of 
the  Italian  roads,  and  made  Cremona  in  the  dog-days  little 
better  than  an  oven  ;  but  the  heat  was  good  to  dry  the 
wood  for  violins.  The  fruit  of  the  vine  was  refreshing, 
but  the  most  precious  ingredient  was,  after  all,  the  spirit 
which  mixed  the  varnish  for  the  wood  of  violins.  Sheep, 
oxen,  and  horses  were,  no  doubt,  valuable  for  food  and  la- 
bor, but  the  best  parts  of  them  were  the  intestines,  which 
made  strings  for  violins ;  the  mane  or  tail,  which  provided 
hair  for  the  bow ;  and  the  gelatinous  hoof,  which  yielded 


STRADIUAMIUS.  325 

good  glue  for  the  manufacture  of  violins.  After  his  first 
essays,  in  which  he  may  be  supposed  to  have  completely 
mastered  the  forms  of  the  old  makers,  and  sounded  their 
shortcomings,  Stradiuarius  appears  to  have  passed  almost 
twenty  years  in  profound  absorption  and  study.  He  was 
trying  to  solve  those  problems  in  sound  which  previous 
makers  had  only  suggested.  Why  were  some  violins 
sweet  and  others  harsh,  or  some  clear  while  others  were 
muffled  ?  What  were  the  peculiar  forms  and  proportions 
which  made  Nicolas  Amati  superior  to  his  predecessors  ? 
Was  it  possible,  by  deviating  from  these  forms,  to  gain  an 
increase  of  power  without  a  loss  of  sweetness?  Some  such 
speculations  as  these  no  doubt  occupied  Antonius  from 
1670  to  1690.  They  were  his  years  of  meditation,  theory, 
and  experiment.  We  have  few  violins  of  this  period,  but 
these  few  bear  his  own  name,  and  still  bear  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  the  Amatis.  It  seems  almost  as  if,  in  what 
he  gave  to  the  world,  he  had  been  unwilling  to  depart 
from  the  finest  model  he  knew  until  he  had  discovered  a 
finer.  After  all,  it  is  only  the  second-rate  minds  that  are 
forever  explaining  their  methods,  and  bringing  the  para- 
phernalia of  the  workshop  before  the  public;  the  first-class 
men  have  a  passion  for  the  perfect  work,  and  can  afford  to 
suppress  many  beautiful  failures  which  seem  to  them  mere- 
ly steps  in  the  ladder  of  progress. 

No  doubt,  then,  the  sudden  change  we  notice  in  1690 
was  not  the  result  of  a  momentary  inspiration  so  much  as 
the  embodiment  of  twenty  years  of  thought  and  experi- 
ment. 

Stradiuarius  had  discovered  a  better  model,  and  his  work 
henceforth  ceases  to  be  a  close  copy  of  his  masters.  His 
violins  are  now  somewhat  wider,  the  arch  of  the  belly  is 
less  abrupt,  the  thicknesses  of  the  wood  are  fixed  accord- 
ing to  more  rigorous  experiments,  the  varnish  has  a  tinge 


326  VIOLINS. 

of  red  in  it,  yet  the  maker  has  not  reached  his  climax. 
The  violins  up  to  this  period,  from  1690  to  1700,  are  called 
Stradiuarius  Amati.  The  great  artist  has  now  reached  his 
fiftieth  year — his  hand  and  eye  had  at  length  attained  su- 
preme skill  and  freedom.  The  violins  from  1720  to  1725 
have  all  the  grace  and  boldness  of  a  Greek  frieze  drawn  by 
a  master's  hand.  The  curves  are  perfectly  graceful — the 
arch  of  the  belly,  not  too  flat  or  too  much  raised,  is  the 
true  natural  curve  of  beauty.  On  each  side  the  undulating 
lines,  as  from  the  bosom  of  a  wave,  flow  down  and  seem  to 
eddy  up  into  the  four  corners,  where  they  are  caught  and 
refined  away  into  those  little  angles  with  that  exquisite 
finish  which  rejoices  the  heart  of  a  connoisseur.  When 
the  instrument  is  held  sideways  against  the  light,  the  curve 
of  the  back,  without  being  exactly  similar,  is  seen  to  form 
a  sweep  in  delicious  harmony  with  the  upper  arch.  The 
details  have  lost  all  the  old  cut-and-dried  stiffness;  the  two 
£  ^  's  are  carved  with  a  symmetry  and  elegance  of  pat- 
tern which  later  makers  have  copied  closely,  but  have  not 
ventured  to  modify.  The  Stradiuarius  is  throughout  a 
thing  of  beauty,  and,  it  may  be  added,  almost  a  joy  forev- 
er. When  opened  for  repairs,  the  interior  is  no  less  per- 
fect. The  little  blocks,  and  ribs,  and  slips  of  wood  to 
strengthen  the  sides,  all  are  without  a  scratch  or  shadow 
of  roughness ;  the  weight  and  size  of  each  are  carefully  ad- 
justed to  the  proportion  of  the  whole ;  and  as  great  poets 
are  said  to  spend  days  over  a  line,  so  Stradiuarius  may 
well  have  spent  as  long  over  the  size,  position,  and  finish 
of  many  a  tiny  block ;  and  as  the  great  architects  of  the 
thirteenth  century  lavished  exquisite  work  on  little  details 
of  their  cathedrals,  in  lofty  pinnacles  and  hidden  nooks,  so 
did  this  great  maker  finish  as  carefully  interior  angles  and 
surfaces  that  were,  perhaps,  never  to  be  seen  but  once  in  a 
hundred  years,  if  so  often,  and  then  only  by  the  eye  of 
some  skillful  artificer. 


STRADIUARIUS.  327 

It  is  in  this  way  that  many  plausible  forgeries  are  de- 
tected. Early  in  the  present  century  the  French  makers 
began  to  copy  the  Stradiuarius  violins  so  closely  that  to 
the  eye  there  seemed  little  difference  between  the  origi- 
nals and  the  copies ;  but  when  the  forgeries  were  taken  to 
pieces  to  improve  their  dull  tone,  or  to  be  cleaned  and 
mended,  the  dead  men's  bones,  in  the  shape  of  rough  blocks, 
lumps  of  glue,  and  rugged  work  of  all  kinds,  were  disclosed, 
and  it  became  quite  clear  that  these  miserable  whited  sep- 
ulchres had  never  imprisoned  the  soul  of  a  Cremona.  And 
thus  the  labor  of  love,  which  might  have  seemed  in  vain 
to  the  master's  contemporaries,  has  had  its  reward  at  last, 
and  lives  forever  to  testify  to  the  cunning  hand  and  the 
devoted  heart.  And  by  a  singular  accident,  which  the  old 
makers  could  not  have  foreseen,  all  their  violins  have  been 
opened,  and  the  faithfulness  of  their  work  made  manifest, 
for  the  bar  which  runs  down  the  middle  of  the  inside  of 
the  arch,  to  support  the  strain  of  the  bridge,  has  had  to  be 
replaced  in  each  case  by  a  stronger  bar,  as  the  pitch  has 
risen  through  successive  years,  and  the  tension  of  the 
strings  increased  in  proportion. 

Stradiuarius  made,  besides  violins,  tenors,  violoncellos, 
and  basses,  a  great  quantity  of  lutes,  guitars,  and  viols, 
which  are  still  celebrated.  His  tenors  are  few  in  number, 
but  very  fine,  and  his  basses  have  all  the  characteristic 
qualities  of  the  violins.  In  a  few  instruments  belonging 
to  his  fine  period  (1700-1725)  we  notice  a  departure  from 
his  most  perfect  forms  —  some  are  elongated,  and  others 
bulge  like  the  older  models — and  both  are  proportionately 
inferior  in  quality. 

From  1725  to  1730  the  violins  are  still  fine,  but  fewer  in 
number,  and  of  more  doubtful  authenticity.  Some  are  be- 
gun by  him  and  finished  by  pupils ;  others,  made  under  his 
direction,  merely  bear  his  name.  About  1730  the  master's 


328  VIOLINS. 

name  begins  to  disappear;  yet  after  this  date  there  are 
several  violins  known  to  be  by  his  hand :  the  execution  is 
uncertain,  the  designs  are  drawn  with  less  vigor,  and  a 
want  of  finish  generally  attests  the  dim  eye  and  feeble 
hand  of  old  age. 

In  1736,  Stradiuarius,  being  then  ninety-two  years  old, 
took  up  his  keen  chisel  and  completed  with  his  own  hand 
his  last  violin.  The  old  man  had  been  waiting  for  death 
ever  since  1729,  the  year  in  which  he  had  his  tomb  made 
ready;  he  died  in  1737.*  His  last  years  were  employed  in 
forming  such  pupils  as  Bergonzi  and  Peter  Guarnerius.  He 
was  quite  aware  that  his  creative  period  was  long  past, 
and  although  he  no  longer  labeled  his  instruments,  in  his 
last  years  he  made  an  incredible  number  of  sketches  and 
models  for  violins,  which  were  afterward  finished  by  his 
numerous  pupils,  and  sold  as  genuine  products. 

Lute-maker  Antonius  was  probably  little  moved  by  the 
political  convulsions  of  his  age.  In  1702  Cremona  was  tak- 
en during  the  War  of  Succession  by  the  French  Marshal 
Villeroy,  recovered  by  Prince  Eugenius,  and  taken  again 
by  the  French.  After  that  time  for  many  years  Italy  con- 
tinued in  a  state  of  profound  and  fatal  tranquillity.  But 
peace  no  doubt  suited  the  absorbed  workman  better  than 
any  patriotic  war. 

If,  before  we  take  leave  of  the  personal  history  of  this 
great  man,  we  are  to  try  and  see  him  as  he  appeared  in 
his  green  old  age  to  the  inhabitants  of  Cremona,  we  must 
transport  ourselves  to  the  house  No.  1239,  in  the  Piazza 
S.  Domenico,  at  Cremona,  and  imagine  that  (now)  carpet 
warehouse  changed  into  an  old  workshop  like  that  de- 

*  "  In  pulling  down  the  church  of  San  Domenico,  at  Cremona,  th« 
tomb  of  Antonio  Stradivari,  the  great  violin-maker,  has  been  discovered. 
His  remains  have  been  transported  to  the  cemetery,  where  a  monument 
will  be  erected  to  him." — Musical  Standard. 


STMADIUARIUS.  309 

scribed  at  the  commencement  of  this  chapter.  There  lived 
and  died  Antonius  Stradiuarius,  known  to  all  men,  respect- 
ed as  one  of  the  oldest  inhabitants,  and  envied  by  not  a 
few  as  the  most  celebrated  lute-maker  in  Italy.  We  can 
not  join  hands  with  him  through  any  living  person  who 
has  seen  him,  but  we  can  almost.  Bergonzi,  grandson  of 
the  great  Carlo  Bergonzi,  who  died  only  a  few  years  ago 
at  the  age  of  eighty,  used  to  point  out  the  house  of  his 
grandfather's  contemporary.  And  old  Polledro,  late  chap- 
el-master at  Turin,  describes  Antonius  as  an  intimate  friend 
of  his  master,  and  we  shall  get  no  nearer  to  Antonius  than 
the  description  he  has  left  of  him.  He  was  high  and  thin, 
and  looked  like  one  worn  with  much  thought  and  inces- 
sant industry.  In  summer  he  wore  a  white  cotton  night- 
cap, and  in  winter  a  white  one  made  of  some  woolen  ma- 
terial. He  was  never  seen  without  his  apron  of  white 
leather,  and  every  day  was  to  him  exactly  like  every  other 
day.  His  mind  was  always  riveted  upon  his  one  pursuit, 
and  he  seemed  neither  to  know  nor  to  desire  the  least 
change  of  occupation.  His  violins  sold  for  four  golden 
livres  apiece,  and  were  considered  the  best  in  Italy ;  and 
as  he  never  spent  any  thing  except  upon  the  necessaries  of 
life  and  his  own  trade,  he  saved  a  good  deal  of  money,  and 
the  simple-minded  Cremonese  used  to  make  jokes  about 
his  thriftiness,  and  not,  perhaps,  without  a  little  touch  of 
envy,  until  the  favorite  proverb  applied  to  a  prosperous 
fellow-citizen  used  to  be  "  As  rich  as  Stradiuarius  /"* 

And  now  it  may  be  thought  that  enough  has  been  said 
153.      concerning  violins  and  their  makers,  but,  in  truth, 

Violin* 

making,  we  have  only  come  to  the  threshold  of  the  subject, 

*  Figure  4  is  copied  from  a  very  perfect  and  powerful  instrument  in 
the  writer's  possession,  bearing  a  label  with  the  master's  seal:  "Antonius 
Stradiuarius  Cremonensis  faciebat  anno  1712." 


330  VIOLINS. 

and  the  mysteries  of  the  manufacture  remain  to  be  ex- 
pounded. This  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult  to  do 
without  the  aid  of  a  great  many  diagrams,  and,  indeed, 
without  presupposing  the  reader  to  have  acquired  some 
practical  knowledge  of  the  art.  I  must  here  confine  my- 
self to  a  few  leading  points. 

It  has  been  sometimes  said  that  the  merit  of  a  violin  is 
not  so  much  in  the  make  as  (i.)  in  the  age,  and  (n.)  the 
quality  of  vibration  produced  in  the  wood  by  incessant 
use.  It  may  be  answered,  first,  that  no  doubt  age  improves 
violins,  but  age  will  never  make  a  good  violin  out  of  a  bad 
one;  witness  the  host  of  violins  that  were  made  in  the 
time  of  Stradiuarius  by  makers  whose  names  are  either 
known  as  greatly  inferior  to  his,  or  forgotten  altogether. 
Again,  that  using  a  violin  keeps  it  in  good  condition  is  no 
doubt  true ;  but  that  much  using  a  bad  one  will  make  it 
good  is  not  certainly  the  case ;  for  how  many  bad  fiddles 
are  there  that  have  been  scraped  assiduously  for  ages,  and 
are  still  as  bad  as  can  be  ? 

Thus  it  would  appear  that  the  secret  of  excellence  lies 
neither  in  age  nor  use,  but  must  be  sought  elsewhere. 

The  excellence  of  a  violin  depends,  roughly  speaking, 
upon  two  ranges  of  qualities:  1.  The  thickness,  density, 
and  collocation  of  the  various  woods.  2.  On  the  nature 
and  direction  of  the  curves. 

1.  The  front  of  a  violin  is  of  soft  deal,  the  back  and  sides 
are  of  maple.  Now  it  is  well  known  that  a  piece  of  wood, 
like  a  string  in  tension,  can  be  set  in  vibration,  and  will 
then  yield  a  certain  musical  note — the  pitch  of  that  note 
will  depend  upon  the  length,  thickness,  and  density  of  the 
wood — and  that  note  will  be  generated  by  a  certain  num- 
ber of  sound-waves  or  vibrations.  Now,  when  the  back 
or  front  of  a  violin  is  covered  with  fine  sand,  and  struck, 
or  otherwise  caused  to  vibrate,  the  sand  will  arrange  itself 


VIOLIN-MAKING.  33 ! 

in  certain  lines,  corresponding  to  the  waves  of  sound  which 
generate  the  note  belonging  to  the  back  or  front,  as  the 
case  may  be.  M.  Savart  maintains  that  after  testing  a 
great  many  of  Stradiuarius's  violins  in  this  way,  he  found 
that  all  the  finest  gave  the  same  note,  but  that  in  no  case 
was  the  note  of  the  front  the  same  as  the  note  of  the  back. 
Further  experiment  showed  that  in  the  finest  violins  there 
was  a  whole  note  between  the  back  and  the  front,  and  that 
any  departure  from  this  rule  was  accompanied  with  injury 
to  the  tone.  There  is  probably  a  general  kind  of  truth  at 
the  bottom  of  these  remarks,  although  suspicion  has  been 
thrown  on  the  worth  and  extent  of  M.  Savart's  experi- 
ments by  some  of  our  experienced  makers ;  however,  the 
following  facts,  stated  necessarily  with  considerable  rough- 
ness, may  be  relied  upon : 

For  the  front  of  the  violin  you  must  choose  a  very  light, 
soft,  and  porous  wood — there  is  nothing  better  in  this  way 
than  common  deal.  When  dry,  if  you  cut  a  section  and 
look  at  it  through  the  microscope,  you  will  see  it  to  be  full 
of  little  hollow  cells,  once  filled  with  the  sap ;  the  more  of 
such  cells  there  are,  the  more  quickly  will  the  wood  vi- 
brate to  sound.  Of  such  wood,  then,  we  make  the  table 
of  harmony,  or  sound-board,  or  belly  of  our  violin.  But  in 
proportion  to  the  quickness  will  be  the  thinness  and  eva- 
nescence of  the  sound,  and  if  the  back  vibrated  as  quickly 
as  the  front,  the  sound  would  be  very  poor.  Accordingly, 
we  take  maple  wood  for  the  back.  It  is  a  harder  wood, 
containing  less  sap,  and,  consequently,  fewer  hollow  cells 
when  dry.  It  therefore  vibrates  more  slowly  than  deal: 
the  effect  of  this  is  to  detain  the  waves  of  sound  radiating 
from  the  deal,  and  to  mix  them  with  slower  vibrations  of 
the  back  in  the  hollow  of  the  instrument.  The  ribs  or 
sides  of  the  violin,  which  are  also  made  of  maple,  serve  to 
connect  the  quickly  vibrating  belly  with  the  slowly  vibrat- 


332  VIOLINS. 

ing  back,  and  hold  them  until  both  throb  together  with  full 
pulsation  and  body  of  sound.  But  we  must  not  omit  to 
mention  a  little  bit  of  stick  called  the  sound-post,  which  is 
stuck  upright  inside  the  violin,  just  under  the  bridge,  and 
helps  the  front  to  support  the  strain  put  upon  it  by  the 
strings.  This  insignificant  little  post,  connecting  as  it  does 
the  inside  roof  of  the  belly  directly  with  the  back,  is  so  im- 
portant in  helping  to  communicate  and  mix  the  vibrations, 
that  the  French  have  called  it  the  "  soul  of  the  violin ;" 
indeed,  by  moving  it  only  a  hair's  breadth  a  sensible  dif- 
ference in  the  quality  of  the  tone  is  produced,  and  a  whole 
morning  may  sometimes  be  wasted  in  putting  it  up  and 
shifting  it  about  from  one  side  to  the  other.  The  best  pos- 
sible advice  to  all  amateurs  is,  when  your  sound-post  is  up, 
leave  it  alone ;  but  if  it  is  evidently  in  the  wrong  place, 
don't  attempt  to  alter  it  yourself,  but  have  it  set  right  by 
some  first-rate  violin  doctor. 

But  we  have  not  quite  done  with  the  vibratory  qualities 
of  the  wood.  Great  skill  must  be  exercised  in  the  choice 
of  woods.  You  might  cut  up  a  dozen  maple-trees  without 
finding  a  piece  of  wood  so  smooth  and  regular  in  grain, 
and  of  such  even  density  as  some  of  the  Stradiuarius  backs; 
and  then,  although  deal  is  more  porous  than  maple,  yet  all 
deal  has  not  the  same  porousness,  nor  is  all  maple  equally 
close-grained.  Consequently,  two  pieces  of  deal  of  equal 
dimensions  will  not  give  the  same  note. 

How  did  Stradiuarius  find  out  the  notes  of  his  wood  ? 
how  did  he  measure  its  vibration  ?  was  he  aware  of  the  in- 
terval between  the  notes  of  his  fronts  and  his  backs  ?  How 
much  he  knew  we  shall  perhaps  never  be  able  to  ascertain. 
His  experiments  in  sound  have  not  been  handed  down  to 
us,  any  more  than  his  way  of  mixing  that  crystal  varnish 
into  which  you  can  look  as  into  the  warm  shadows  of  sun- 
lit water.  The  best  authorities  believe  that  he  did  not 


VIOLIN-MAKING.  333 

know  the  reason  of  what  he  did — did  not  determine  at  all 
scientifically  the  various  densities  of  his  woods,  or  inten- 
tionally place  a  whole  tone  between  the  back  and  the  bel- 
ly ;  and  for  this  reason,  that  had  he  once  discovered  these 
laws,  neither  he  nor  his  pupils  would  have  deviated  from 
them,  and  we  know  that  he  did  so  deviate ;  for  out  of  the 
immense  number  of  his  instruments  only  the  finest  of  his 
finest  period  obey  the  test  of  these  natural  laws  of  acous- 
tics. 

I  am  told  that  after  years  of  familiarity  with  violins  and 
their  woods,  the  hand  gets  to  tell  the  different  densities  of 
wood  by  the  feel,  just  as  blind  people  can  tell  certain  col- 
ors ;  and  it  is  possible  that  Stradiuarius,  in  his  choice  of 
woods  and  their  tonal  relations,  was  guided  by  a  certain 
instinct  insensibly  founded  upon  the  immense  range  of  his 
experience.  I  am  assured  by  an  eminent  maker  that  he 
can  tell  by  the  feel  the  kind  of  wood  which  is  likely  to  form 
the  right  front  to  get  on  well  with  a  certain  back,  and  vice 
versd. 

But  we  must  not  forget  to  say  a  word  about  the  curves. 
We  have  seen  that  the  general  shape  of  the  violin  has  been 
fixed,  after  years  of  varied  experiment.  It  is  not  shaped  so 
for  convenience  (although  its  last  most  perfect  shape  hap- 
pens to  be  also  the  most  convenient),  but  because  its  final 
shape  is  acoustically  proved  to  be  the  best.  The  most 
important  curves  are  the  longitudinal  and  latitudinal  lines 
of  the  belly  and  the  back.  At  first  viols  were  made  flat, 
like  guitars,  then  in  all  sorts  of  fanciful  curves ;  the  older 
ones  are  thick  and  bulgy,  like  pumpkins.  The  curve  grad- 
ually subsided,  until  we  get  the  exquisite  wavy  lines  of 
Stradiuarius  —  that  curve  so  graceful,  because  it  is  the 
curve  of  nature.  Set  a  string  in  vibration,  and  you  will 
get  the  curve  in  the  rise  of  a  Stradiuarius  back.  And  I 
am  told  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  modern  discoveries  that 


334  VIOLINS. 

this  curve  itself — as  it  were  distilled  from  a  vibration — is 
the  only  one  which  is  found  perfectly  to  conduct  the  vi- 
bratory waves  of  sound.  If  Stradiuarius  had  known  this, 
would  he  ever  have  departed  from  it  ?  As  a  fact,  we  have 
eonie  of  his  instruments  whose  curves  are  as  far  removed 
from  nature  as  those  of  Amati  or  Magini.  We  are  bound 
almost  to  infer  that  he  did  not  know  for  a  certainty,  but) 
got  at  last  to  know  the  kind  of  curves  which,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  other  qualities,  went  to  produce  the  finest  tone. 

But  the  sides  or  ribs  also  call  for  special  notice.  The 
height  of  these  determines,  of  course,  the  air-bearing  ca- 
pacity of  the  instrument.  It  is  found  by  experiment  that 
all  the  best  violins  contain  about  the  same  amount  of  air, 
and  that  a  certain  fixed  relation  between  their  air-bearing 
capacity  and  the  thickness  of  the  wood  is  always  adhered 
to,  and  any  departure  from  this  rule  is  found  to  injure  the 
intensity  of  the  sound.  If  there  is  too  much  air,  the  deep 
tones  are  dull  and  feeble,  the  high  notes  thin  and  screamy ; 
if  too  little  air,  the  deep  tones  are  harsh,  and  the  first  string 
loses  its  brilliancy. 

Again,  if  the  sounding-board  or  belly  is  too  thin,  the 
sonority  will  be  poor  and  weak ;  if  too  thick,  the  vibrations 
will  be  slow  and  stiff,  or,  as  violin-players  say,  the  instru- 
ment will  not  "  speak."  Arch  the  belly  too  much,  or  make 
it  too  flat,  in  either  case  the  equilibrium  of  the  mass  of  air 
will  be  disturbed,  and  the  sound  will  be  muffled  and  nasal. 

The  shape  and  proportions  of  the  two  *C  ^'s  can  not 
safely  be  departed  from ;  no  more  can  the  model  and  the 
various  incisions  of  the  bridge.  Immense  numbers  of  holes, 
of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  were  tried,  and  also  every  possible 
description  of  bridge,  before  Stradiuarius  fixed  the  pattern, 
which  no  good  violin-maker  has  since  ventured  to  alter  or 
modify  in  the  least  degree. 

The   Stradiuarius  varnish,  which  has   a  warm  reddish 


CONCLUSION.  335 

tinge  in  it,  preserves  the  wood  from  damp,  and  prevents  it 
from  rotting;  it  lies  upon  the  wood  like  a  thin  sheet  of  the 
most  transparent  agate.  The  inside  of  the  violin  is  not 
varnished  ;  the  hard  outer  coat  of  varnish  serves  to  drive 
the  sound  inward,  where  it  mixes  and  vibrates  before  es- 
caping through  from  the  two 


We  have  now  done  with  our  historical  and  technical  de- 
154  scription  of  the  violin,  and  perhaps  we  have  said 
Conclusion.  enough  to  show  why  it  is,  and  must  ever  remain, 
the  most  fascinating  of  instruments,  not  only  to  the  hearer 
and  the  player,  but  even  to  the  collector.  There  seems  to 
be  a  strangely  sensitive,  almost  human  element  about  it, 
which  exists  in  no  other  instrument,  and  which  goes  far  to 
explain  the  enormous  prices  paid  for  some  of  the  fine  vio- 
lins ;  300,  and  even  400  guineas  are  not  unfrequently  paid 
down  cheerfully  for  a  single  one.  No  doubt  there  is  often 
some  "  fancy"  in  the  price.  You  meet  with  a  violin  that 
suits  you,  and  it  is  simply  worth  any  thing  that  you  can 
afford  to  pay.  Different  instruments,  equally  fine  in  their 
way,  have  separate  qualities  and  peculiar  characters  ;  and 
the  violin,  which  in  some  hands  will  prove  unmanageable, 
will  yield  up  to  others  all  its  hidden  and  mysterious  sweet- 
ness. No  instrument  is  so  capricious  or  so  absorbing.  If 
one  string  chances  to  be  a  little  too  thick,  the  others  will 
rebel;  it  will  take  to  some  particular  bridge,  and  reject 
others  ;  it  will  have  its  bridge  in  one  place,  and  only  one  ; 
it  feels  every  change  in  the  weather,  like  a  barometer,  and 
has  to  be  rubbed,  and  coaxed,  and  warmed  into  good  hu- 
mor like  a  child.  Sometimes  after  being  caressed,  and, 
above  all,  played  into  splendid  condition,  the  sensitive  way 
in  which  it  responds  to  each  tiny  variation  of  the  touch 
will  entrance  and  astonish  the  player  himself.  Thus  it  will 
often  happen  as  if  the  player  found  quite  as  much  power 


336  VIOLINS. 

as  he  brought ;  and  if  at  times  he  dictates  to  the  violin,  the 
violin,  at  others,  seems  to  subdue  him,  and  carry  him  away 
with  its  own  sweetness,  until  he  forgets  his  own  mind,  and 
follows  the  lead  and  suggestion  of  his  marvelous  compan- 
ion. 

We  have  no  room  left  for  hints  to  amateur  violinists,  but 
we  may  as  well  close  with  two  practical  remarks : 

Firstly.  Do  not  take  up  the  violin  unless  you  mean  to 
work  hard  at  it.  Any  other  instrument  may  be  more  safe- 
ly trifled  with. 

Secondly.  It  is  almost  hopeless  to  attempt  to  learn  the 
violin  after  the  age  of  ten. 


PIANO-FORTES. 


n. 

BEFORE  the  Piano-forte  came  the  Harpsichord,  and  be- 
Ori  Inof the  ^ore  t^e  Harpsichord  came  the  Spinet,  and  before 
Piano-forte,  the  Spinet  came  the  Virginal,  and  before  the  Vir- 
ginal came  the  Clavichord  and  Monochord,  before  these  the 
Clavicytherium,  before  that  the  Citole,  before  that  the  Dul- 
cimer and  Psaltery,  and  before  them  all  the  Egyptian,  Gre- 
cian, and  Roman  harps,  and  lyres  innumerable. 

Some  of  the  harps  of  antiquity  were  struck  with  a  quill 
or  "  plectrum" — we  know  very  little  about  them  except 
that  some  were  round  and  some  angular,  some  with  three 
corners,  some  with  more,  some  had  ten  strings,  some  thir- 
teen; and  modifications  of  these  varieties  formed  the  staple 
of  stringed  instruments  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Middle 
Ages,  then,  had  harps  of  all  kinds,  and  out  of  the  harp  grew 
the  psaltery,  the  dulcimer,  and  citole.  The  Psaltery*  was 
a  box  with  metal  strings  stretched  over  it ;  it  was  plucked 
with  a  quill.  The  Dulcimerf  was  also  a  box  with  strings 
stretched  over  it,  but  it  was  struck  with  two  crooked  sticks. 
The  Citole,  or  "  little  chest,"  was  another  box  with  strings 
stretched  over  it,  but  it  was  played  with  the  fingers.  And 
now,  if  we  roll  all  these  into  one,  we  shall  get  the  first  glim- 
mering notion  or  embryo  of  a  piano.  A  piano  involves 
three  fundamental  ideas :  P&rcussion  (hammer),  Vibration 

*  Psaltery,  from  "  psaltendo,"  singing. 
+  Dulcimer,  "dulce  melos,"  sweet  souud. 


338  PIANO-FORTES. 

on  sonorous  box  (sounding-board),  and  Finger-touch  through 
mechanical  action  (key-board).  From  the  dulcimer,  some- 
times called  hacbret,  or  hack-board  (alas  !  how  many  young 
ladies  go  back  to  the  Dark  Ages,  and  turn  their  pianos  into 
hack-boards !) — from  the  dulcimer  we  get  percussion  with 
a  hammer,  and  from  all  three  we  get  the  sonorous  box,  or 
sounding-board;  but  no  one  had  yet  thought  of  that  crown- 
ing glory — that  now,  at  length,  so  perfect  and  subtle  a  min- 
ister of  touch,  the  key-board.  As  early  as  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury the  key-board  was  applied  to  the  organ,  and  some 
time  afterward  an  unknown  Italian  (perhaps  Guido  of  Arez- 
zo)  adapted  it  to  stringed  instruments,  and  hence  arose  the 
Clavicytherium,  or  Keyed  Lyre.  For  many  reasons  the 
Clavicytherium  was  not  extensively  popular,  and  for  cen- 
turies after  we  read  that  at  the  feasts  there  was  "  Cy tolyng 
and  eke  harping,  y*  fydle  dovcemere,  ye  psaltery  and  voices 
sweet  as  bell."  But  little  mention  is  made  of  the  Clavicy- 
therium, the  "  dark  horse"  which  was,  after  all,  to  be  the 
winner.  The  fact  is,  in  those  days  people  seem  sometimes 
to  have  progressed  backward :  e.  g.,  the  Clavicytherium 
was  fitted  with  catgut  strings  and  plucked  with  quills,  called 
jacks ;  and  so,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  the  instrument, 
in  gaining  a  key-board,  actually  lost  its  metal  strings  and 
the  percussion  touch  !  The  construction  of  the  Clavicy- 
therium was  coarse  and  simple  to  a  fault.  I  have  no  doubt 
that,  like  our  first  harmoniums,  it  was  always  getting  out 
of  order — keys  sticking,  catgut  snapping,  etc.,  and  was  al- 
together much  less  manageable  and  portable  than  hack- 
boards  and  citoles. 

The  Clavichord*  (1500)  was  a  real  advance;  it  was  in 

most  respects  like  the  Clavicytherium,  with  the  restoration 

of  metal  strings  and  the  addition  of  that  sine  qud  non  of 

all  delicate  effects  ot  harmony — the  damper.     The  damper, 

*  "  Clavi,"  a  key;  "  chorda,"  a  string. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  PIANO-FORTE.  339 

as  every  one  knows,  is  a  piece  of  cloth  which  descends 
upon  the  strings  after  they  have  been  struck,  to  check  the 
vibration  and  prevent  the  sounds  running  into  one  another. 

The  Clavicymbal  differed  only  from  the  Clavichord  in 
shape ;  it  bore  the  same  relation  to  the  Clavichord  that  a 
small  square  piano  does  to  an  upright  semi-grand. 

With  the  Clavichord  and  Clavicymbal  we  enter  civilized 
regions;  instead  of  having  to  fall  back  upon  unknown  dul- 
cimer players,  copied  from  old  manuscripts,  and  ladies  out 
of  stained  windows  with  citoles  on  their  laps,  we  have  the 
solemn  figure  of  old  Sebastien  Bach,  with  his  neat  periwig 
and  silk  stockings,  thrumming  those  wonderfully  melodi- 
ous jigs  and  sarabands  on  his  favorite  instrument,  the  clavi- 
chord. "  I  find  it,"  he  says,  "  capable  of  expressing  the 
most  refined  thoughts.  I  do  not  believe  it  possible  to  pro- 
duce from  any  harpsichord  or  piano-forte  (i.  e.,  a  piano- 
forte of  the  Bach  period)  such  a  variety  in  the  gradations 
of  tones  as  upon  this  instrument,  which,  I  allow,  is  poor  in 
quality  and  small  in  scale,  but  extremely  flexible."  In 
1772  Dr.  Burney  visited  C.  P.  E.  Bach,  and  heard  him  play. 
"  M.  Bach,"  he  writes, "  was  so  obliging  as  to  sit  down  to 
his  Silberman  clavichord,  on  which  he  played  three  or  four 
of  his  choicest  compositions.  In  the  pathetic  and  slow 
movements,  whenever  he  had  a  long  note,  he  absolutely 
contrived  to  produce  from  his  instrument  a  cry  of  sorrow 
or  complaint,  such  as  can  only  be  effected  on  the  clavi- 
chord, and  perhaps  by  himself." 

The  Virginal  and  Spinet  were  still  nearer  approaches  to 
166  the  piano-forte;  they  were  an  improved  and 
The  virginal.  more  expensive  kind  of  clavichord ;  they  were 
much  in  vogue  toward  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  were  found  chiefly  in  the  Elizabethan  boudoirs  of  the 
fine  ladies  of  that  stirring  and  romantic  epoch.  Here,  for 


340  PIANO-FORTES. 

instance,  is  a  description  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots'  virginal 
"  It  was  made  of  oak,  inlaid  with  cedar,  and  richly  orna- 
mented with  gold ;  the  cover  and  sides  were  beautifully 
painted  with  figures  of  birds,  flowers,  and  leaves,  and  the 
colors  are  still  bright.  On  the  lid  is  a  grand  procession 
of  warriors,  whom  a  bevy  of  fair  dames  are  propitiating  by 
presents  of  wine  and  fruit." 

Some  think  virginal  refers  to  Elizabeth,  who  liked  to  be 
called  the  virgin  queen.  Dr.  Johnson  says  it  was  a  com- 
pliment to  young  ladies  in  general,  who  all  liked  to  strum 
on  the  virginal.  But  another  writer,  with  better  judg- 
ment, reminds  us  how,  in  the  pleasant  twilights  of  con- 
vents and  old  halls,  it  served  to  lead  sweet  voices  singing 
hymns  to  the  Virgin.  The  very  sound  of  the  word  "  vir- 
ginal" reminds  one  of  St.  Cecilia  sitting,  as  Raffael  has 
painted  her,  in  a  general  atmosphere  of  music,  with  angels 
listening;  or  else  the  light  should  fall  through  stained 
glass  upon  old  impaneled  wainscots  of  dark  oak,  or  upon 
purple  velvet  cushions  and  rich  tapestry.  And  there,  in 
some  retired  nook  of  an  ancient  palace,  at  sunset, "  my  love 
doth  sit,"  saith  Spenser, 

"Playing  alone,  careless,  on  her  heavenlie  virginals." 

Or  here  is  another  picture  drawn  from  life;  it  is  to  be 
found  in  the  "Memoirs  of  Sir  James  Melvil,"  1683,  embas- 
sador  from  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  to  Queen  Elizabeth: 
"After  dinner  my  Lord  of  Hundsen  drew  me  up  to  a  quiet 
gallery,  that  I  might  hear  some  musick  (but  he  said  that 
he  durst  not  avow  it),  where  I  might  hear  the  Queen 
(Elizabeth)  play  upon  the  virginals.  After  I  had  hearken- 
ed a  while,  I  took  up  the  tapestry  that  hung  before  the  door 
of  the  chamber,  and,  seeing  her  back  was  toward  the  door, 
I  entered  within  the  chamber  and  stood  a  pretty  space, 
hearing  her  play  excellently  well;  but  she  left  offimmedi- 


THE  VIRGINAL.  341 

ately  she  turned  about  and  saw  me.  She  appeared  to  be 
surprised  to  see  me,  and  came  forward,  seeming  to  strike 
me  with  her  hand,  alleging  she  used  not  to  play  before 
men,  but  when  she  was  solitary,  to  shun  melancholy.  She 
asked  how  I  came  there.  I  answered,  as  I  was  walking 
with  my  Lord  Hundsen,  as  we  passed  by  the  chamber  door 
I  heard  such  a  melody  as  ravished  me,  whereby  I  was 
drawn  in  ere  I  knew  how — excusing  my  fault  of  homeli- 
ness as  being  brought  up  at  the  court  of  France,  where 
such  freedom  is  allowed.  Then  she  sat  down  low  upon  a 
cushion,  and  I  upon  my  knees  by  her.  She  inquired  wheth- 
er my  queen  or  she  played  best.  In  that  I  found  myself 
obliged  to  give  her  the  praise." 

Again  he  writes :  "  She  (Elizabeth)  asked  me  if  she 
(Mary  Queen  of  Scots)  played  well.  I  said, '  Reasonably, 
for  a  queen.' "  This  reminds  us  of  Handel's  reply  to  his 
royal  patron,  who  asked  him  how  he  liked  his  playing  on 
the  violoncello.  "Vy,  sir,  your  highness  plays  like  a 
prince !" 

Shakspeare  was  fully  alive  to  the  sentimental  side  of  the 
u  heavenlie  virginal,"  as  the  following  sonnet  proves : 

"How  oft  when  thou,  my  music,  music  playst 

Upon  that  blessed  wood  whose  motion  sounds 
With  thy  sweet  fingers,  when  thou  gently  swayst 

The  wiry  concord  that  mine  ear  confounds, 
Do  I  envy  those  jacks  that  nimbly  leap 

To  kiss  the  tender  inward  of  thy  hand, 
While  my  poor  lips  that  should  that  harvest  reap 
At  the  wood's  boldness  by  thee  blushing  stand  ? 
To  be  so  tickled,  they  would  change  their  state 

And  situation  with  those  dancing  chips, 
O'er  whom  thy  fingers  walk  with  gentle  gait, 
Making  dead  wood  more  bless'd  than  living  lips! 
Since  saucy  jacks  so  happy  are  in  this. 
Give  them  thy  fingers — me  thy  lips  to  kiss!" 


342  PIANOFORTES. 

About  the  year  1 700  the  Virginal  went  out  of  fashion, 
157  and  its  place  was  finally  taken  up  by  the  im- 
The Spinet  prove(j  clavichord,  called  Spinet*  and,  later  on, 
harpsichord.  In  1760,  a  first-class  harpsichord  by  Rticker, 
the  most  celebrated  maker,  cost  one  hundred  guineas.  A 
•*rand  harpsichord  looked  precisely  like  a  grand  piano, 
nly  it  was  provided  with  two  key-boards,  one  above  the 
other,  the  top  one  being  to  the  bottom  one  very  much 
what  the  swell  key-board  of  the  organ  is  to  the  main  key- 
board. To  every  note  there  were  four  strings,  three  in 
unison,  the  fourth  tuned  an  octave  higher,  and  there  were 
stops  capable  of  shutting  off  or  coupling  any  of  these  to 
gether.  The  quality  of  the  sound  depended  upon  the  ma 
terial  of  which  the  jack  was  made — whether,  that  is,  the 
string  was  struck  with  cloth,  quill,  metal,  or  buff  leather ; 
the  quantity  did  not  depend,  as  in  the  piano,  upon  the  fin- 
ger touch,  but  upon  the  number  of  strings  coupled  togeth- 
er by  the  stops.  It  now  at  last  occurred  to  admirers  of 
the  harp  and  violin  that  all  refinement  of  musical  expres- 
sion depended  upon  touch,  and  that  whereas  you  could 
only  pluck  a  string  by  machinery  in  one  way,  you  might 
hit  it  in  a  hundred  different  ways. 

The  long-abandoned  notion  of  striking  the  strings  with 
IBS.       a  hammer  was  at  length  revived,  and  by  the  ad- 

The  Piano-      .  .  ' 

forte.  dition  of  this  third  and  last  element,  the  harpsi- 
chord emerged  into  the  Piano-forte.  The  idea  occurred 
to  three  men  at  the  same  time,  about  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century  —  Cristofali,  an  Italian;  Marius,  a 
Frenchman ;  and  Schroter,  a  German ;  the  palm  probably 
rests  with  the  Italian,  although  so  clumsy  were  the  first 
attempts  that  little  success  attended  them,  and  good  harp- 
sichords on  the  wrong  principle  were  still  preferred  to  bad 
*  From  "spina,"a  thorn — hence  "quill." 


THE  PIAXO-FORTE.  343 

pianos  on  the  right  one;  but  the  key-note  of  the  new  in- 
strument had  been  struck  in  more  senses  than  one — the 
object  of  centuries  was,  in  fact,  accomplished — the  age  of 
the  quill,  pig's  bristle,  thorn,  ivory  tongue,  etc.,  was  rapidly 
drawing:  to  its  close.  A  small  hammer  was  made  to  strike 

o 

the  string  and  awake  a  clear,  precise,  and  delicate  tone  un- 
heard before,  and  the  "  scratch  with  a  sound  at  the  end  of 
it"  was  about  to  be  consigned,  after  a  long  reign,  to  an 
eternal  oblivion. 

We  can  not  wonder  at  the  old  harpsichord  and  clavi- 
chord lovers,  even  the  greatest  of  them,  not  taking  kindly 
at  first  to  the  piano-forte ;  the  keys  required  a  greater  del- 
icacy of  treatment,  it  became  necessary  for  musicians  and 
amateurs  to  change  their  style  of  playing,  and  this  alone 
was  enough  to  hand  over  the  new  instrument  to  the  rising 
generation.  Silberman  showed  two  of  his  piano-fortes  to 
Sebastien  Bach,  who  praised  them  as  ingenious  pieces  of 
mechanism,  but  complained  of  their  feebleness  of  tone.  Sil- 
berman, nothing  disconcerted,  retired  into  his  workshop, 
and,  after  some  years  of  study,  during  which  no  expense 
was  spared,  he  at  last  produced  an  instrument  which  even 
Bach,  wedded  as  he  was  to  the  clavichord,  pronounced  to 
be  "without  fault."  From  that  moment  a  rapid  demand 
for  Silberman's  pianos  rose  throughout  Germany;  they 
could  not  be  made  fast  enough. 

Frederick  the  Great,  who  indulged  in  a  variety  of  the  most 
159.      improbable  pursuits,  had  several  of  them  about  his 

Sebastien         f  -,,.,,. 

Bach.  palace ;  and  having  the  nnest  pianos,  he  was  natu- 
rally anxious  to  hear  the  finest  player  in  the  world  upon 
them.  But  Sebastien  Bach,  like  other  great  "spirits  of  the 
vasty  deep,"  would  not  always  come  when  called  for.  At 
last,  one  night  in  the  year  1747,  as  the  king  took  up  his 
flute  to  perform  a  concerto  at  a  private  concert  in  the  pal- 


344  PIANO-FORTES. 

aee,  a  messenger  came  in  with  a  list  of  the  guests  already 
arrived.  With  his  flute  in  his  hand,  the  king  ran  over  the 
names,  and,  turning  suddenly  to  the  musicians,  in  a  most 
excited  manner  said, "  Gentlemen,  old  Bach  is  come !"  The 
great  man  had  indeed  alighted,  after  his  long  journey,  at 
his  son's  house ;  but,  by  express  orders  from  the  king,  he 
was  hurried  to  the  palace.  The  concert  was  suspended ; 
no  doubt  the  courtiers,  in  little  groups,  began  eagerly  dis- 
cussing the  new  event ;  and  the  king's  enthusiasm  speedily 
spread  through  the  assembly.  Presently  the  door  opens, 
and  "  old  Bach,"  in  his  dusty  traveling  coat,  his  eyes  some- 
what dazzled  with  the  sudden  glare  of  light,  steps  into  the 
midst  of  this  lordly  company  of  powdered  wigs  and  doub- 
lets, and  diamonded  tiaras  and  sword-hilts.  His  majesty, 
after  a  warm  and  unceremonious  greeting,  besought  the 
great  contrapuntist  to  improvise  to  the  company ;  and 
Bach  passed  the  remainder  of  the  evening  going  from  room 
to  room,  followed  by  troops  of  admiring  court  ladies  and 
musicians,  and  trying  "forte-pianos  made  by  Silberman" 

But  the  man  who,  more  than  any  other,  made  the  piano 
.   lee.       and  piano-forte  music  popular  in  England  and  all 

Mozart  and  •>•••«  -» *      •      /-«  • 

dementi,  over  the  Continent  was  Muzio  dementi,  born  at 
Rome,  1752.  At  eighteen  he  composed  his  Op.  II.,  which 
forms  the  basis  of  all  modern  piano -forte  sonatas,  and 
which,  Sebastien  Bach  observed,  only  the  devil  and  de- 
menti could  play.  Clementi  was  educated  in  England,  by 
the  kindness  of  Mr.  Beckford,  and  soon  rivaled  Bach  as  a 
popular  teacher.  In  1780  he  went  to  Paris,  and  was  per- 
fectly astounded  at  his  reception.  He  was  dubbed  the 
greatest  player  of  the  age,  Mozart  perhaps  excepted,  and 
soon  afterward  left  for  Vienna,  where  he  became  acquaint- 
ed with  Mozart,  the  reigning  star,  Father  Haydn,  and  old 
Salieri,  who  was  decidedly  going  off,  and  hated  the  new 


MOZART  AND  CLEMENTI.  345 

music,  new  pianos,  and  every  thing  new.  What  right,  for- 
sooth, had  these  young  upstarts  to  write  music  which  the 
old  men  could  not  play?  And  such  music  too!  Mozart 
was  a  charlatan,  Beethoven  an  impostor,  and  even  Schu- 
bert, the  dear  little  choir-boy,  who  might  have  carried  on 
the  glorious  old  Italian  traditions,  was  becoming  tainted, 
and  writing  music  like  Mozart !  Poor  Salieri !  if  he  could 
only  have  heard  the  seventh  Schubert  Symphony  and  the 
B  minor  Sonata,  what  would  have  become  of  him? 

One  evening  Mozart  and  Clementi  met  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  the  Emperor  Joseph  II. ;  the  Emperor  and  Em- 
press of  Russia  were  the  only  others  present.  The  royal 
trio  were  longing  for  a  little  music;  but  how  could  one 
great  master  take  precedence  of  the  other  ?  At  last,  Cle- 
menti, the  elder  of  the  two,  consented  to  begin,  which  he 
did  with  a  long  improvization,  winding  up  with  a  sonata. 
"  Allons,"  says  the  emperor,  turning  to  Mozart,  "  d'rauf 
los !"  (now  fire  away  !),  and  Mozart,  after  a  short  prelude, 
played  one  of  his  own  sonatas.  The  royal  audience  ap- 
pear to  have  been  delighted,  and  probably  thought  the  one 
about  as  good  as  the  other ;  but  Mozart  observed  of  Cle- 
menti, "  He  is  a  good  player,  and  that  is  all ;  he  has  great 
facility  with  his  right  hand,  but  not  an  atom  of  taste  or 
feeling !" 

The  pianos  used  by  Mozart  and  Clementi  were  the  last 
improved  pianos  of  Stein,  the  successor  of  Silberman,  with 
an  extended  compass  of  five  octaves;  yet,  in  comparison 
with  the  commonest  pianos  now  in  use,  these  were  but 
miserable  machines.  The  genius,  however,  was  even  then 
alive  who  was  destined  to  sweep  away  every  imperfection 
in  the  working  of  the  piano,  and  place  it  once  and  forever 
on  its  present  proud  pedestal. 


346  PIANO-FORTES. 

Sebastian  Erard  was  born  at  Strasburg,  April  5th,  1752. 
161  His  extraordinary  mechanical  genius  early  at- 
wooWJnard,  tracted  the  attention  of  all  the  scientific  me- 
pieyei  chanics  in  France ;  every  problem  was  brought 

to  him  and  generally  solved  by  him  as  speedily  as  incom- 
prehensible sums  in  arithmetic  used  to  be  by  the  Calculat- 
ing Boy.  His  manners  were  refined,  and  the  force  of  his 
amiable  and  versatile  character  gained  him  admission  into 
the  highest  circles.  He  lived  in  the  homes  of  the  French 
nobility,  and  amused  them  by  the  uninterrupted  flow  of 
brand-new  inventions  and  extraordinary  mechanical  con- 
trivances. Nothing  was  too  hard  for  him  to  accomplish, 
and  nothing  so  good  but  what  he  could  find  means  to  im- 
prove upon  it.  In  1796  he  made  his  first  horizontal  grand 
pianos,  and  Dussek  played  on  one  with  great  eclat  in  Paris 
in  1808.  But  the  touch  was  still  heavy  and  somewhat 
slow.  It  was  not  until  1823  that  Erard  produced  an  in- 
strument susceptible  of  the  finest  gradations  in  touch ;  and 
thus,  after  laying  down  all  the  new  principles  which  have 
since  made  his  name  so  illustrious,  he  breathed  his  last  at 
his  country  house, "  La  Muette,"  near  Passey,  on  the  5th 
of  August,  1831,  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine. 

The  greatest  manufacturing  firms  in  Europe  are  those 
of  Erard,  Broad  wood,  Collard,  and  Pleyel.  Touch  and  tone 
are  the  two  great  tests  of  a  piano's  excellence ;  speaking 
roughly,  Erard  will  bear  the  palm  for  touch  and  Broad- 
wood  for  tone.  Collard's  flat  semi-grands  and  upright  tri- 
chords may  be  especially  recommended  as  brilliant  and 
good  for  wear  and  tear.  It  would  be  hazardous  to  pro- 
nounce in  favor  of  any  one  of  these  great  firms,  as  almost 
every  player  has  his  own  opinion,  and  so  far  we  have  mere- 
ly given  ours.  There  are  about  two  hundred  well-known 
piano-forte  makers,  and  each  one  has  his  own  peculiar  key- 
board action,  most  of  them  being  very  slight  modifications 


ERARD,  BROAD  WOOD,  COLLARD,  PLEYEL.  347 

of  those  used  by  the  four  great  firms.  The  stringg  of  a 
Grand  pull  between  eleven  and  twelve  tons,  or  about  twen- 
ty-five thousand  pounds.  There  are  forty-eight  different 
materials  used  in  constructing  a  piano,  laying  no  less  than 
sixteen  different  countries  under  contribution,  and  employ- 
ing forty-two  different  hands.  The  finest  piano  may  be 
obtained  for  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  guineas.  In 
the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851,  Erard's  grand  was  valued  at 
one  thousand,  Broadwood's  at  one  thousand  two  hundred, 
and  Collard's  at  five  hundred  guineas ;  but  the  extra 
money  was  to  pay  for  the  gorgeous  cases.  About  twenty 
thousand  pianos  are  annually  fabricated. 

The  following  simple  rules  are  more  commonly  known 
than  observed.  Keep  your  piano  out  of  damp  rooms; 
never  place  it  too  near  the  fire  or  the  window,  or  between 
them,  or  in  a  draught,  but  place  it  at  least  a  foot  from  the 
wall,  or  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Do  not  load  the  top 
of  it  with  books ;  and  if  it  is  a  cottage,  don't  turn  the  bot- 
tom— as  I  have  known  some  people  do — into  a  cupboard 
for  wine  and  dessert.  Keep  the  keys  carefully  dusted,  and 
always  shut  down  the  lid  when  you  have  done  playing. 


BELLS. 


m. 

THE  long,  winding   staircase  seems  to  have  no  end. 
162.       Two  hundred  steps  are  already  below  us.     The 

Towers  and    ...  ,  , 

Belfries.  higher  we  go,  the  more  broken  and  rugged  are 
the  stairs.  Suddenly  it  grows  very  dark,  and,  clutching 
the  rope  more  firmly,  we  struggle  upward.  Light  dawns 
again  through  a  narrow  Gothic  slit  in  the  tower;  let  us 
pause  and  look  out  for  a  moment.  The  glare  is  blinding, 
but  from  the  deep,  cool  recess  a  wondrous  spectacle  un- 
folds itself.  We  are  almost  on  a  level  with  the  roof  of  a 
noble  cathedral.  We  have  come  close  upon  a  fearful 
dragon.  He  seems  to  spring  straight  out  of  the  wall. 
We  have  often  seen  his  lean,  gaunt  form  from  below — he 
passed  almost  unnoticed  with  a  hundred  brother  gurgoyles 
— but  now  we  are  so  close  to  him  our  feelings  are  differ- 
ent; we  seem  like  intruders  in  his  lawful  domains.  His 
face  is  horribly  grotesque  and  earnest.  His  proportions, 
which  seemed  so  diminutive  in  the  distance,  are  really  co- 
lossal— but  here  every  thing  is  colossal.  This  huge  scroll, 
this  clump  of  stone  cannon-balls,  are,  in  fact,  the  little 
vine  tendrils  and  grapes  that  looked  so  frail  and  delicately 
carven  from  below.  Among  the  petals  of  yonder  mighty 
rose  a  couple  of  pigeons  are  busy  building  their  nests; 
seeds  of  grasses  and  wild  flowers  have  been  blown  up,  and 
here  and  there  a  tiny  garden  has  been  laid  out  by  the  ca- 
pricious winds  on  certain  wide  stone  hemlock  leaves ;  the 


TOWERS  AND  BELFRIES.  349 

fringe  of  yonder  cornice  is  a  waste  of  lilies.  As  we  try  to 
realize  detail  after  detail,  the  heart  is  almost  pained  by  the 
excessive  beauty  of  all  this  petrified  bloom,  stretching  away 
over  flying  buttresses,  and  breaking  out  upon  column  and 
architrave,  and  the  eye  at  last  turns  away  weary  with 
wonder.  A  few  more  steps  up  the  dark  tower,  and  we 
are  in  a  large  dim  space,  illuminated  only  by  the  feeblest 
glimmer.  Around  and  overhead  rise  huge  timbers,  inclin- 
ing toward  each  other  at  every  possible  angle,  and  hewn, 
centuries  ago,  from  the  neighboring  forests,  which  have 
long  since  disappeared.  They  support  the  roof  of  the 
building.  Just  glancing  through  a  trap-door  at  our  feet, 
we  seem  to  look  some  miles  down  into  another  world.  A 
few  foreshortened,  but  moving  specks,  we  are  told  are  peo- 
ple on  the  floor  of  the  cathedral,  and  a  bunch  of  tiny  tubes, 
about  the  size  of  a  Pan-pipe,  really  belong  to  an  organ  of 
immense  size  and  power. 

At  this  moment  a  noise  like  a  powerful  engine  in  motion 
recalls  our  attention  to  the  tower.  The  great  clock  is 
about  to  strike,  and  begins  to  prepare  by  winding  itself  up 
five  minutes  before  the  hour.  Groping  among  the  wilder- 
ness of  cross-beams  and  timbers,  we  reach  another  stair- 
case, which  leads  to  a  vast  square  but  lofty  fabric,  filled 
with  the  same  mighty  scaffolding.  Are  not  these  most 
dull  and  dreary  solitudes?  The  dust  of  ages  lies  every 
where  around  us,  and  the  place  which  now  receives  the 
print  of  our  feet  has,  perhaps,  not  been  touched  for  five 
hundred  years.  And  yet  these  ancient  towers,  and  the 
inner  heights  and  recesses  of  these  old  roofs  and  belfries, 
soon  acquire  a  strong  hold  over  the  few  who  care  to  ex- 
plore them.  Lonely  and  deserted  as  they  may  appear, 
there  are  hardly  five  minutes  either  of  the  day  or  night 
up  there  that  do  not  see  strange  sights  or  hear  strange 
sounds. 


350  SELLS. 

As  the  eye  gets  accustomed  to  the  twilight,  we  may 
watch  the  large  bats  flit  by.  Every  now  and  then  a  poor 
lost  bird  darts  about,  screaming  wildly,  like  a  soul  in  Pur- 
gatory that  can  not  find  its  way  out.  Then  we  may  come 
upon  an  ancient  rat,  who  seems  as  much  at  home  there  as 
if  he  had  taken  a  lease  of  the  roof  for  ninety-nine  years. 
We  have  been  assured  by  the  carillonneur  at  Louvain  that 
both  rats  and  mice  are  not  uncommon  at  such  considerable 
elevations. 

Overhead  hang  the  huge  bells,  several  of  which  are  de- 
voted to  the  clock ;  others  are  rung  by  hand  from  below ; 
while  somewhere  near,  besides  the  clock  machinery,  there 
will  be  a  room  fitted  up,  like  a  vast  musical  box,  containing 
a  barrel,  which  acts  upon  thirty  or  forty  bells  up  in  the 
tower,  and  plays  tunes  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night. 

You  can  not  pass  many  minutes  in  such  a  place  without 
the  clicking  of  machinery  and  the  chiming  of  some  bell — 
even  the  quarters  are  divided  by  two  or  three  notes,  or 
half-quarter  bells.  Double  the  number  are  rung  for  the 
quarter,  four  times  as  many  for  the  half  hour,  while  at  the 
hour  a  storm  of  music  breaks  from  such  towers  as  Mechlin 
and  Antwerp,  and  continues  for  three  or  four  minutes  to 
float  for  miles  over  the  surrounding  country. 

The  bells,  with  their  elaborate  and  complicated  striking 
apparatus,  are  the  life  of  these  old  towers — a  life  that  goes 
on  from  century  to  century,  undisturbed  by  many  a  con- 
vulsion in  the  streets  below.  These  patriarchs,  in  their 
tower,  hold  constant  converse  with  man,  but  they  are  not 
of  him ;  they  call  him  to  his  duties,  they  vibrate  to  his 
woes  and  joys,  his  perils  and  victories,  but  they  are  at  once 
sympathetic  and  passionless ;  chiming  at  his  will,  but  hang- 
ing far  above  him ;  ringing  out  the  old  generation,  and 
ringing  in  the  new,  with  a  mechanical,  almost  oppressive 
regularity,  and  an  iron  constancy  which  often  makes  them 


TOWERS  AND  BELFRIES.  351 

and  their  gray  towers  the  most  revered  and  ancient  things 
in  a  large  city. 

The  great  clock  strikes  :  it  is  the  only  music,  except  the 
thunder,  that  can  fill  the  air.  Indeed,  there  is  something 
almost  elemental  in  the  sound  of  these  colossal  and  many- 
centuried  bells.  As  the  wind  howls  at  night  through  their 
belfries,  the  great  beams  seem  to  groan  with  delight ;  the 
heavy  wheels,  which  sway  the  bells,  begin  to  move  and 
creak ;  and  the  enormous  clappers  swing  slowly,  as  though 
longing  to  respond  before  the  time. 

At  Tournay  there  is  a  famous  old  belfry.  It  dates  from 
the  twelfth  century,  and  is  said  to  be  built  on  a  Roman 
base.  It  now  possesses  forty  bells.  It  commands  the  town 
and  the  country  round,  and  from  its  summit  is  obtained  a 
near  view  of  the  largest  and  finest  cathedral  in  Belgium, 
with  its  five  magnificent  towers.  Four  brothers  guard  the 
summit  of  the  belfry  at  Tournay,  and  relieve  each  other 
day  and  night,  at  intervals  often  hours.  All  through  the 
night  a  light  is  seen  burning  in  the  topmost  gallery ;  and 
when  a  fire  breaks  out,  the  tocsin,  or  big  bell,  is  tolled  up 
aloft  by  the  watchman.  He  is  never  allowed  to  sleep — 
indeed,  as  he  informed  us,  showing  us  his  scanty  accommo- 
dation, it  would  be  difficult  to  sleep  up  there.  On  stormy 
nights,  a  whirlwind  seems  to  select  that  watchman  and  his 
tower  for  its  most  violent  attacks ;  the  darkness  is  often  so 
great  that  nothing  of  the  town  below  can  be  seen.  The 
tower  rocks  to  and  fro,  and  startled  birds  dash  themselves 
upon  the  shaking  light,  like  sea-birds  upon  a  light-house 
lantern. 

Such  seasons  are  not  without  real  danger;  more  than 
once  the  lightning  has  melted  and  twisted  the  iron  hasps 
about  the  tower,  and  within  the  memory  of  man  the  ma- 
sonry itself  has  been  struck.  During  the  long  peals  of  thun- 
der that  come  rolling  with  the  black  rain-clouds  over  the 


352  BELLS. 

level  plains  of  Belgium  the  belfry  begins  to  vibrate  like  a 
huge  musical  instrument,  as  it  is ;  the  bells  peal  out,  and 
seem  to  claim  affinity  with  the  deep  bass  of  the  thunder, 
while  the  shrill  wind  shrieks  a  demoniac  treble  to  the  wild 
and  stormy  music. 

All  through  the  still  summer  night  the  belfry  lamp  burns 
like  a  star.  It  is  the  only  point  of  yellow  light  that  can  be 
seen  up  so  high,  and  when  the  moon  is  bright  it  looks  al- 
most red  in  the  silvery  atmosphere.  Then  it  is  that  the 
music  of  the  bells  floats  farthest  over  the  plains,  and  the 
postilion  hears  the  sound  as  he  hurries  along  the  high  road 
from  Brussels  or  Lille,  and,  smacking  his  whip  loudly,  he 
shouts  to  his  weary  steed  as  he  sees  the  light  of  the  old 
tower  of  Tournay  come  in  sight. 

Bells  are  heard  best  when  they  are  rung  upon  a  slope  or 
in  a  valley,  especially  a  water  valley.  The  traveler  may 
well  wonder  at  the  distinctness  with  which  he  can  hear  the 
monastery  bells  on  the  Lake  of  Lugano,  or  the  church  bells 
over  some  of  the  long  reaches  of  the  Rhine.  Next  to  val- 
leys, plains  carry  the  sound  farthest.  Fortunately,  many 
of  the  finest  bell-towers  in  existence  are  so  situated.  It  is 
.well  known  how  freely  the  sound  of  the  bells  travels  over 
Salisbury  Plain.  Why  is  there  no  proper  peal,  and  why 
are  the  bells  not  attended  to  there  ?  The  same  music  steals 
far  and  wide  over  the  Lombard  Plain  from  Milan  Cathe- 
dral ;  over  the  Campagna  from  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  ;  over 
the  flats  of  Alsatia  to  the  Vosges  Mountains  and  the  Black 
Forest  from  the  Strasbourg  spire;  and,  lastly,  over  the 
plain  of  Belgium  from  the  towers  of  Tournay,  Ghent,  Brus- 
sels, Louvain,  and  Antwerp.  The  belfry  at  Bruges  lies  in 
a  hollow,  and  can  only  be  seen  and  heard  along  the  line  of 
its  own  valley. 

To  take  one's  stand  at  the  summit  of  Strasbourg  Cathe- 
dral at  the  ringing  of  the  sunset  bell,  just  at  the  close  of 


TOWERS  AND  BELFRIES.  353 

some  effulgent  summer's  day,  is  to  witness  one  of  the  finest 
sights  in  the  world.  The  moment  is  one  of  brief  but  in- 
effable splendor,  when,  between  the  mountains  and  the 
plain,  just  as  the  sun  is  setting,  the  mists  rise  suddenly  in 
strange  sweeps  and  spirals,  and  are  smitten  through  with 
the  golden  fire  which,  melting  down  through  a  thousand 
tints,  passes,  with  the  rapidity  of  a  dream,  into  the  cold 
purples  of  the  night. 

Pass  for  a  moment,  in  imagination,  from  such  a  scene  to 
the  summit  of  Antwerp  Cathedral  at  sunrise.  Delicately 
tall,  and  not  dissimilar  in  character,  the  Antwerp  spire  ex- 
ceeds in  height  its  sister  of  Strasbourg,  which  is  commonly 
supposed  to  be  the  highest  in  the  world.  The  Antwerp 
spire  is  403  feet  high  from  the  foot  of  the  tower.  Stras- 
bourg measures  468  feet  from  the  level  of  the  sea,  but  less 
than  403  feet  from  the  level  of  the  plain. 

By  the  clear  morning  light,  the  panorama  from  the  stee- 
ple of  Notre  Dame  at  Antwerp  can  hardly  be  surpassed. 
One  hundred  and  twenty-six  steeples  may  be  counted,  far 
and  near.  Facing  northward,  the  Scheldt  winds  away  un- 
til it  loses  itself  in  a  white  line,  which  is  none  other  than 
the  North  Sea.  By  the  aid  of  a  telescope  ships  can  be  dis- 
tinguished out  on  the  horizon,  and  the  captains  declare 
they  can  see  the  lofty  spire  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
distant.  Middleburg  at  seventy-five,  and  Flessing  at  six- 
ty-five miles,  are  also  visible  from  the  steeple.  Looking 
toward  Holland,  we  can  distinguish  Breda  and  Walladuc, 
each  about  fifty-four  miles  off. 

Turning  southward,  we  can  not  help  being  struck  by  the 
fact  that  almost  all  the  great  Belgian  towers  are  within 
sight  of  each  other.  The  two  lordly  and  massive  towers 
of  St.  Gudule's  Church  at  Brussels,  the  noble  fragment  at 
Mechlin,  that  has  stood  for  centuries  awaiting  its  compan- 
ion, besides  many  others,  with  carillons  of  less  importance, 
23 


354  BELLS. 

can  be  seen  from  Antwerp.  So  these  mighty  spires,  gray 
and  changeless  in  the  high  air,  seem  to  hold  converse  to- 
gether over  the  heads  of  puny  mortals,  and  their  language 
is  rolled  from  tower  to  tower  by  the  music  of  the  bells. 

"Non  sunt  loquellae  neque  sennones  audiantur  voces 
eorum."  ("  There  is  neither  speech  nor  language,  but  their 
voices  are  heard  among  them.") 

Such  is  the  inscription  we  copied  from  one  bell  in  the 
tower  at  Antwerp,  signed  "  F.  Hemony,  Amstelodamia 
(Amsterdam),  1658." 

Bells  have  been  sadly  neglected  by  antiquaries.  There 
163.  are  too  few  churches  or  cathedrals  in  England 
Bell-hunting.  concerning  whose  bells  any  thing  definite  is 
known,  and  the  current  rumors  about  their  size,  weight, 
and  date  are  seldom  accurate.  In  Belgium  even,  where  far 
more  attention  is  paid  to  the  subject,  it  is  difficult  to  find 
in  the  archives  of  the  towns  and  public  libraries  any  ac- 
count of  the  bells.  The  great  folios  at  Louvain,  Antwerp, 
and  Mechlin,  containing  what  is  generally  supposed  to  be 
an  exhaustive  transcript  of  all  the  monumental  and  fune- 
.  real  inscriptions  in  Belgium,  will  often  bestow  but  a  couple 
of  dates  and  one  inscription  upon  a  richly-decorated  and 
inscribed  carillon  of  thirty  or  forty  bells.  The  reason  of 
this  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  fact  is,  it  is  no  easy  matter  to 
get  at  the  bells  when  they  are  once  hung,  and  many  an 
antiquarian,  who  will  haunt  tombs  and  pore  over  illegible 
brasses  with  commendable  patience,  will  decline  to  risk  his 
neck  in  the  most  interesting  of  belfries.  The  pursuit,  too, 
is  often  a  disappointing  one.  Perhaps  it  is  possible  to  get 
half  way  round  a  bell,  and  then  be  prevented  by  a  thick 
beam,  or  the  bell's  own  wheel,  from  seeing  the  other  half, 
which,  by  a  perverse  chance,  generally  contains  the  date 
and  name  of  the  founder.  Perhaps  the  oldest  bell  is  quite 


ANTIQUITY  OF  BELLS.  355 

inaccessible,  or,  after  half  an  hour's  climbing  amid  the  ut- 
most dust  and  difficulty,  we  reach  a  perfectly  blank  or 
commonplace  bell  To  any  one  who  intends  to  prosecute 
his  studies  in  belfries,  we  should  recommend  the  practice 
of  patience,  an  acquaintance  with  the  Gothic  type,  and  a 
preliminary  course  of  appropriate  gymnastics.  These  last 
might  consist  in  trying  to  get  through  apertures  too  small 
to  admit  the  human  body,  hanging  from  the  ceiling  of  a 
dark  room  by  one  hand  while  trying  to  read  an  illegible 
inscription  by  the  light  of  a  lucifer  match  held  in  the  oth- 
er, attempting  to  stand  on  a  large  wheel  while  in  gentle 
rotation  without  losing  your  equilibrium,  and  employing 
the  bell-ropes  as  a  means  of  ascent  and  descent  without 
ringing  the  bells.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  mention  that, 
as  it  is  often  possible  to  pass  the  arm  round  a  bell  audfeel 
the  dates  and  letters  which  it  may  be  impossible  either  to 
see  or  in  any  way  illuminate,  a  little  practice  with  raised 
inscriptions  will  soon  enable  the  bell-hunter  to  read  as  the 
blind  read — with  his  fingers. 

The  antiquary  will  note  with  satisfaction  the  incontest- 
164.      able  antiquity  of  bells.   We  read  in  Exodus  xxviii, 

Antiquity  ,          .      .  .  . 

of  Bells.  34,  a  description  ot  the  high-priests  dress  at  the 
celebration  of  the  high  sacrifices.  He  was  to  wear  "  a  gold- 
en bell  and  a  pomegranate  upon  the  hem  of  his  robe  round 
about ;"  and  to  show  that  no  mere  ornament  is  intended, 
in  the  next  verse  (35)  we  read, "  It  shall  be  upon  Aaron  to 
minister,  and  his  sound  shall  be  heard  when  he  goeth  in 
unto  the  holy  place  before  the  Lord,  and  when  he  cometh 
out."  This  ancient  use  of  bells  in  the  old  Hebrew  services 
irresistibly  reminds  us  of  the  beK  which  is  introduced  into 
the  Roman  ritual  at  the  celebration  of  the  mass. 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  trace  the  history  of  bells  before 
the  Christian  era.    It  is  certain  that  they  were  early  used 


356  BELLS. 

in  the  Christian  Church  for  devotional  purposes.  The  first 
large  bells  for  this  purpose  were  probably  cast  in  Italy: 
they  were  soon  afterward  introduced  into  this  island. 

Ingulphus,  who  died  in  the  year  870,  mentions  a  chime 
of  six  bells  given  by  the  Abbot  Turketulus  to  the  Abbey 
of  Croyland ;  and  he  adds,  with  much  satisfaction,  as  the 
sound  of  those  famous  old  bells  came  back  upon  him,  with 
memories  perchance  of  goodly  reflections  at  the  abbey, 
and  noble  fasts  on  fish,  and  long  abstinence  tempered  with 
dried  raisins  from  Italy  and  the  British  oyster  —  "Non 
erat  tune  tanta  consonantia  campanarum  in  tota  Anglia." 
("There  wasn't  such  a  peal  of  bells  in  all  England.")* 

We  believe  there  is  no  bell  extant  of  so  early  a  date  as 
800.  Bad  bells  have  a  habit  of  cracking,  and  the  best  will 
be  worn  out  by  the  clapper  in  time,  and  have  to  be  recast. 
There  are,  however,  some  wondrous  bells  in  different  parts 
of  the  world,  which  deserve  to  be  mentioned  even  in  so 
informal  a  treatise  as  the  present.  Father  Le  Comte,  the 
Jesuit  missionary,  speaks  of  seven  enormous  bells  at  Pe- 
kin,  each  of  which  was  said  to  weigh  nine  tons.  They 
proved  too  heavy  for  the  Chinese  tower,  and  one  day  they 
rang  it  into  ruins.  Indeed,  a  Chinese  tower  never  looks  as 
if  it  could  bear  a  good  storm  of  wind,  much  less  the  strain 
and  heavy  rhythmic  vibration  of  a  peal  of  bells. 

The  largest  bell  in  the  world  is  the  great  bell  at  Moscow 
— if  it  has  not  been  broken  up.  It  was  cast  in  1653  by 
order  of  the  Empress  Sophia,  and  has  never  been  raised — 
not  because  it  is  too  heavy,  but  because  it  is  cracked.  All 
was  going  on  well  at  the  foundery,  when  a  fire  broke  out 
in  Moscow  —  streams  of  water  were  dashed  in  upon  the 
houses  and  factories,  and  a  little  stream  found  its  way  into 
the  bell-metal  at  the  very  moment  when  it  was  rushing  in 
a  state  effusion  into  the  colossal  bell-mould,  and  so,  to  the 

*  Serious  doubts  have  been  cast  on  the  authenticity  of  this  document. 


ANTIQ UITT  OF  BELLS.  357 

disappointment  of  the  Russian  people  and  all  posterity, 
the  big  bell  came  out  cracked.  It  may  be  as  well  to  men- 
tion that  a  gentleman  lately  returned  from  Moscow  throws 
discredit  upon  this  generally  accepted  statement,  and  main- 
tains that  the  bell  was  originally  hung,  and  that  the  crack 
was  caused  by  its  subsequent  fall.  It  is  said  to  weigh  no 
less  than  198  tons.  The  second  Moscow  bell  is  probably 
the  largest  in  the  world  in  actual  use,  and  is  reported  to 
weigh  128  tons.  The  following  extract  from  Chambers's 
"  Encyclopaedia,"  a  work  of  unusual  accuracy,  will  illus- 
trate the  great  difficulty  of  arriving  at  any  thing  like  facts 
and  figures :  "  The  largest  bell  in  the  world  is  the  great 
bell  or  monarch  of  Moscow,  about  21  feet  high,  and  weigh- 
ing 193  tons  (sic).  It  was  cast  in  1734,  but  fell  down  dur- 
ing a  fire  in  1737,  was  injured  and  remained  sunk  in  the 
earth  till  1837,  when  it  was  raised,  and  now  forms  the  dome 
of  a  chapel  made  by  excavating  the  space  below  it.  An- 
other Moscow  bell,  cast  in  1819,  weighs  80  tons  (sic)"  Our 
first  account  of  the  great  Moscow  bell  is  derived  from  M. 
Severin  van  Aerschodt,  the  celebrated  bell-founder  at  Lou- 
vain. 

There  are  not  many  English  bells  worth  noticing.  In 
1845  a  bell  of  10|  tons  was  hung  in  York  Minster.  The 
great  Tom  at  Lincoln  weighs  5|  tons.  His  namesake  at 
Oxford  7  tons. 

We  have  to  allude  by-and-by  to  the  bells  at  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  and  at  Westminster,  but  for  the  present  we  re- 
turn to  Belgium,  the  "  classic  land  of  bells,"  as  it  has  been 
well  called  by  the  Chevalier  Van  Elewyck. 

About  1620,  while  the  Amatis  in  Italy  were  feeling  their 

IBS.        Wa7  to  the  manufacture  of  the  finest  violins,  the 

Ua*  of  Beiis.  famijy  of  Van  den  Gheyns,  in  Belgium,  were 

bringing  to  perfection  the  science  of  bell-founding.     The 


358  BELLS. 

last  Van  den  Gheyn  who  made  bells  flourished  only  a  few 
years  later  than  Stradiuarius,  and  died  toward  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century.  The  incessant  civil  wars  in  which 
Belgium  for  centuries  had  been  engaged — at  one  time  the 
mere  battle-field  of  rival  cities,  at  another  the  sturdy  de- 
fender of  patriotic  rights  against  France,  Germany,  and. 
lastly,  against  her  old  mistress,  Spain — gave  to  the  bells 
of  Belgium  a  strange  and  deep  significance.  The  first  ne- 
cessity in  a  fortified  town  like  Ghent  or  Bruges  was  a  tow- 
er to  see  the  enemy  from,  and  a  bell  to  ring  together  the 
citizens.  Hence  the  tower  and  bells  in  some  cathedrals 
are  half  civil  property.  The  tower  was  usually  built  first, 
although  the  spire  was  seldom  finished  until  centuries  aft- 
erward. A  bell  was  put  up  as  soon  as  possible,  which  be- 
longed to  the  town,  not  to  the  cathedral  chapter.  Thus 
the  Curfew,  the  Carolus,  and  the  St.  Mary  bells  in  the  Ant- 
werp tower  belong  to  the  town,  while  the  rest  are  the  prop- 
erty of  the  cathedral  chapter. 

It  is  with  no  ordinary  emotion  that  the  lover  of  bells 
ascends  these  ancient  towers,  not  knowing  what  he  shall 
find  there.  He  may  be  suddenly  brought  into  contact 
with  some  relic  of  the  past  which  will  revive  the  historical 
life  of  a  people  or  a  period  in  a  way  in  which  hardly  any 
thing  else  could.  He  hears  the  very  sound  they  heard. 
The  inscriptions  on  the  bell,  in  their  solemn  earnestness  or 
their  fresh  foreboding,  are  often  like  drops  of  blood  still 
warm  from  the  veins  of  the  past.  None  but  those  who 
have  experienced  it  can  understand  the  thrill  of  joy,  as  of 
treasure-trove,  which  strikes  through  the  seeker  upon  catch- 
ing sight  of  the  peculiar  elongated  kind  of  bell  which  pro- 
claims an  antiquity  of  perhaps  four  hundred  years.  How 
eagerly  he  climbs  up  to  it !  how  tenderly  he  removes  the 
green  bloom  over  the  heavy  rust  which  has  settled  in  be- 
tween the  narrow  Gothic  letters !  how  he  rubs  away  at 


USE  OF  BELLS.  359 

their  raised  surfaces,  in  order  to  induce  them  to  yield  up 
their  precious  secret !  How  the  first  thing  he  always  looks 
for  is  a  bell  without  a  D  or  500  in  it — e. ^.,MCCCXX. — and 
how  often  he  is  disappointed  by  deciphering  MCCCCCXX., 
where  MDXX.  might  have  been  written,  and  put  an  end  at 
once  to  his  hopes  of  a  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century  bell. 
Then  the  first  bell  he  will  seek  on  reaching  a  famous  tower 
will  be  the  "bourdon,"  or  big  bell,  which  has  probably 
proved  too  large  for  the  enemy  to  carry  away,  or  which, 
by  some  lucky  chance,  has  escaped  the  sacrilegious  melting 
down,  and  been  left  to  the  town,  perhaps  at  the  interces- 
sion of  its  fairest  women  or  its  most  noble  citizens.  Ascend- 
ing into  the  open  belfry,  his  eye  will  rest  with  something 
like  awe  upon  the  very  moderate-sized  bell  hanging  high 
up  in  the  dusk  by  itself— the  oldest  in  the  tower,  which, 
from  its  awkward  position  and  small  value,  has  escaped  the 
spoliation  and  rapine  of  centuries. 

We  can  hardly  wonder  at  the  reverence  with  which  the 
inhabitants  of  Mechlin,  Ghent,  and  Antwerp  regard  their 
ancient  bells,  and  the  intelligent  enthusiasm  with  which 
they  speak  of  them.  Certain  bells  which  we  shall  have  to 
mention  are  renowned  not  only  throughout  Belgium,  but 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  Most  people  have  heard 
of  the  Carolus  Bell  at  Antwerp,  and  there  is  not  a  respect- 
able citizen  in  any  town  of  Belgium  who  would  not  be 
proud  to  tell  you  its  date  and  history. 

Will  the  reader  now  have  patience  to  go  back  a  century 
ice.         or  two,  and  assist  at  the  founding  of  some  of 

Bell-founding 

in  Belgium,  these  bells  ?  It  is  no  light  matter,  but  a  sub- 
ject of  thought,  and  toil,  and  wakeful  nights,  and  often 
ruinous  expense.  Let  us  enter  the  town  of  Mechlin  in  the 
year  1638.  We  may  well  linger  by  the  clear  and  rapid 
River  Senne.  The  old  wooden  bridge,  which  has  since 


360  BELLS. 

been  replaced  by  a  stone  one,  unites  two  banks  full  of  the 
most  picturesque  elements.  To  this  day  the  elaborately- 
carved  fa9ades  of  the  old  houses  close  on  the  water  are  of 
an  incomparable  richness  of  design.  The  peculiar  ascent 
of  steps  leading  up  to  the  angle  of  the  roof,  in  a  style  of 
architecture  which  the  Flemish  borrowed  from  the  Span- 
iards, is  still  every  where  to  be  met  with.  Several  houses 
bear  dates  from  1605  and  upward,  and  are  still  in  habita- 
ble repair.  The  river  line  is  gracefully  broken  by  trees 
and  gardens,  which  doubtless  in  the  earlier  times  were 
still  more  numerous  within  the  precincts  of  the  rough  city 
wall,  and  afforded  fruits,  vegetables,  and  scanty  pasturage 
in  time  of  siege.  The  noblest  of  square  florid  Gothic  tow- 
ers, the  tower  of  the  Cathedral  church  dedicated  to  St. 
Rumboldt,  and  finished  up  to  three  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  feet,  guides  us  to  what  is  now  called  the  Grande 
Place,  where  stands  still,  just  as  it  stood  then,  the  "Halles," 
with  a  turret  of  1340,  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville  of  the  fif- 
teenth century. 

But  our  business  is  with  an  obscure  hut-like  building  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Cathedral :  it  is  the  workshop  and 
furnaces  adjoining  the  abode  of  Peter  Van  den  Gheyn,  the 
most  renowned  bell-founder  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
born  in  1605.  In  company  with  his  associate,  Deklerk,  ar- 
rangements are  being  made  for  the  founding  of  a  big  bell. 
Let  us  suppose  it  to  be  the  celebrated  "  Salvator,"  for  the 
Cathedral  tower  hard  by. 

Before  the  cast  was  made  there  was  no  doubt  great  con- 
troversy between  the  mighty  smiths,  Deklerk  and  Van  den 
Gheyn ;  plans  had  to  be  drawn  out  on  parchment,  meas- 
urements and  calculations  made,  little  proportions  weigh- 
ed by  a  fine  instinct,  and  the  defects  and  merits  of  ever  so 
many  bells  canvassed.  The  ordinary  measurements  which 
now  hold  good  for  a  large  bell  are,  roughly,  one  fifteenth 


BELL-FOUNDING  IN  BELGIUM.  361 

of  the  diameter  in  thickness,  and  twelve  times  the  thick- 
ness in  height. 

We  may  now  repair  to  the  outhouses,  divided  into  two 
principal  compartments.  The  first  is  occupied  by  the  fur- 
naces, in  whose  centre  is  the  vast  caldron  for  the  fusion  of 
the  metal ;  and  the  second  is  a  kind  of  shallow  well,  where 
the  bell  would  have  to  be  modeled  in  clay.  Let  us  watch 
the  men  at  their  work.  The  object  to  be  first  attained  is 
a  hollow  mould  of  the  exact  size  and  shape  of  the  intended 
bell,  into  which  the  liquid  metal  will  then  be  poured  through 
a  tube  from  the  adjacent  furnace,  and  this  mould  is  con- 
structed in  the  following  simple  but  ingenious  manner: 
Suppose  the  bell  is  to  be  six  feet  high,  a  brick  column  of 
about  that  height  is  built  something  in  the  shape  of  a  bell, 
round  which  clay  has  to  be  moulded  until  the  shape  pro- 
duced is  exactly  the  shape  of  the  outside  of  a  bell.  Upon 
the  smooth  surface  of  this  solid  bell-shaped  mass  can  now 
be  laid  figures,  decorations,  and  inscriptions  in  wax.  A 
large  quantity  of  the  most  delicately  prepared  clay  is  then 
produced ;  the  model  is  slightly  washed  with  some  kind  of 
oil  to  prevent  the  fine  clay  from  sticking  to  it,  and  three 
or  four  coats  of  the  fine  clay  in  an  almost  liquid  state  are 
daubed  carefully  all  over  the  model ;  next,  a  coating  of 
common  clay  is  added  to  strengthen  the  mould  to  the 
thickness  of  some  inches ;  and  thus  the  model  stands  with 
its  great  bell-shaped  cover  closely  fitting  over  it. 

A  fire  is  now  lighted  underneath.  The  brick-work  in  the 
interior  is  heated  through,  then  the  clay,  then  the  wax  or- 
naments and  oils,  which  steam  out  in  vapor  through  two 
holes  at  the  top,  leaving  their  impressions  on  the  inside  of 
the  cover.  When  every  thing  is  baked  thoroughly  hard, 
the  cover  is  raised  bodily  into  the  air  by  a  rope,  and  held 
suspended  some  feet  exactly  above  the  model.  In  the  in- 
terior of  the  cover  thus  raised  will  of  course  be  found  the 


362  SELLS. 

exact  impression  in  hollow  of  the  outside  of  the  bell.  The 
model  of  clay  and  masonry  is  then  broken  up,  and  its  place 
is  taken  by  another  perfectly  smooth  model,  only  smaller 
and  exactly  the  size  of  the  inside  of  the  bell.  On  this  the 
great  cover  now  descends,  and  is  stopped  in  time  to  leave 
a  hollow  space  between  the  new  model  and  itself.  This  is 
effected  simply  by  the  bottom  rim  of  the  new  model  form- 
ing a  base,  at  the  proper  distance  upon  which  the  rim  of 
the  clay  cover  may  rest  in  its  descent.  The  hollow  space 
between  the  clay  cover  and  the  second  clay  mould  is  now 
the  exact  shape  of  the  required  bell,  and  only  waits  to  be 
filled  with  metal. 

So  far  all  has  been  comparatively  easy ;  but  the  critical 
moment  has  now  arrived.  The  furnaces  have  long  been 
smoking ;  the  brick-work  containing  the  caldron  is  almost 
glowing  with  red  heat ;  a  vast  draught-passage  underneath 
the  floor  keeps  the  fire  rapid;  from  time  to  time  it  leaps 
up  with  a  hundred  angry  tongues,  or,  rising  higher,  sweeps 
in  one  sheet  of  flame  over  the  furnace-imbedded  caldron. 
Then  the  cunning  artificer  brings  forth  his  heaps  of  choice 
metal — large  cakes  of  red  coruscated  copper  from  Dron- 
theim,  called  "  Rosette,"  owing  to  a  certain  rare  pink  bloom 
that  seems  to  lie  all  over  it,  like  the  purple  on  a  plum ; 
then  a  quantity  of  tin,  so  highly  refined  that  it  shines  and 
glistens  like  pure  silver :  these  are  thrown  into  the  caldron, 
and  melted  down  together.  Kings  and  nobles  have  stood 
beside  these  famous  caldrons,  and  looked  with  reverence  on 
the  making  of  these  old  bells ;  nay,  they  have  brought  gold 
and  silver,  and  pronouncing  the  holy  name  of  some  saint  or 
apostle  which  the  bell  was  hereafter  to  bear,  they  have 
flung  in  precious  metals,  rings,  bracelets,  and  even  bullion. 
But  for  a  moment  or  two  before  the  pipe  which  is  to  con- 
vey the  metal  to  the  mould  is  opened,  the  smith  stands  and 
•tirs  the  molten  mass  to  see  if  all  is  melted.  Then  he  casts 


BELL-FOUNDING  IN  BELGIUM.  353 

in  certain  proportions  of  zinc  and  other  metals  which  be- 
long to  the  secrets  of  the  trade ;  he  knows  how  much  de- 
pends upon  these  little  refinements,  which  he  has  acquired 
by  experience,  and  which  perhaps  he  could  not  impart  even 
if  he  would — so  true  is  it  that  in  every  art  that  which  con- 
stitutes success  is  a  matter  of  instinct,  and  not  of  rule,  or 
even  science.  He  knows,  too,  that  almost  every  thing  de- 
pends upon  the  moment  chosen  for  flooding  the  mould. 
Standing  in  the  intense  heat,  and  calling  loudly  for  a  still 
more  raging  fire,  he  stirs  the  metal  once  more.  At  a  given 
signal  the  pipe  is  opened,  and  with  a  long  smothered  rush 
the  molten  fluid  fills  the  mould  to  the  brim.  Nothing  now 
remains  but  to  let  the  metal  cool,  and  then  to  break  up  the 
clay  and  brick-work,  and  extract  the  bell,  which  is  then  fin- 
ished, for  better  for  worse. 

A  good  bell,  when  struck,  yields  one  note,  so  that  any 
person  with  an  ear  for  music  can  say  what  it  is.  This  note 
is  called  the  consonant,  and  when  it  is  distinctly  heard  the 
bell  is  said  to  be  "  true."  Any  bell  of  moderate  size  (little 
bells  are  too  small  to  be  experimented  upon)  may  be  tested 
in  the  following  manner.  Tap  the  bell  just  on  the  curve 
of  the  top,  and  it  will  yield  a  note  one  octave  above  the 
consonant.  Tap  the  bell  about  one  quarter's  distance  from 
the  top,  and  it  should  yield  a  note  which  is  the  quint,  or 
fifth  of  the  octave.  Tap  it  two  quarters  and  a  half  lower, 
and  it  will  yield  a  tierce,  or  third  of  the  octave.  Tap  it 
strongly  above  the  rim,  where  the  clapper  strikes,  and  the 
quint,  the  tierce,  and  the  octave  will  now  sound  simultane- 
ously, yielding  the  consonant  or  key-note  of  the  bell. 

If  the  tierce  is  too  sharp,  the  bell's  note  (i.e.,  the  con- 
sonant) wavers  between  a  tone  and  a  halftone  above  it ;  if 
the  tierce  is  flat,  the  note  wavers  between  a  tone  and  a  half 
tone  below  it ;  in  either  case  the  bell  is  said  to  be  "  false." 
A  sharp  tierce  can  be  flattened  by  filing  away  the  inside 


364  BELLS. 

of  the  bell  just  where  the  tierce  is  struck  ;  but  if  the  bell, 
when  cast,  is  found  to  have  a  flat  tierce,  there  is  no  rem- 
edy. The  consonant  or  key-note  of  a  bell  can  be  slightly 
sharpened  by  cutting  away  the  inner  rim  of  the  bell,  or 
flattened  by  filing  it  a  little  higher  up  inside,  just  above 
the  rim. 

The  greatest  makers  do  not  appear  to  be  exempt  from 
167.         failure.     In  proportion  to  the  size  is  the  diffi- 

Belgiam  Bell- 


culty  of  casting  a  true  bell,  and  one  that  will 
not  crack  ;  and  the  admirers  of  the  great  Westminster  bell, 
which  is  cracked,  may  console  themselves  with  the  reflec- 
tion that  many  a  bell,  by  the  finest  Belgium  makers,  has 
cracked  before  our  Big  Ben.  The  Salvator  bell  at  Mechlin, 
renowned  as  was  its  maker,  Peter  Van  den  Gheyn,  cracked 
in  1696  —  i.  e.,  only  fifty-eight  years  after  it  was  made.  It 
was  recast  by  De  Haze  of  Antwerp,  and  lasted  till  a  few 
years  ago.  On  the  summit  of  Mechlin  tower  we  fell  in  with 
the  man  who  helped  to  break  up  the  old  Salvator,  and  al- 
though he  admitted  that  it  has  now  issued  from  Severin 
van  Aerschodt's  establishment,  cast  for  the  third  time,  as 
fine  as  ever,  he  shook  his  head  gravely  when  he  spoke  of 
the  grand  old  bell  which  had  hung  and  rung  so  well  for  two 
hundred  years.  When  a  bell  has  been  recast,  the  fact  will 
usually  be  found  recorded  on  it  by  some  such  inscription 
as  that  on  the  "  St.  Maria"  bell  at  Cologne  Cathedral  : 
"  Fusa  anno  Mccccxvm.  —  refusa  per  lonnem  Bourlet  anno 
MDCLXXXXIII."  The  name  of  Bourlet  is  still  to  be  found  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Cologne. 

The  names  that  most  frequently  occur  in  Belgium  are 
those  of  the  Van  den  Gheyns,  Dumery,  and  Hernony.  We 
have  come  across  many  others  of  whom  we  can  learn  noth- 
ing. "  Claude  &  Joseph  Plumere  nous  ont  faict,"  and  un- 
derneath, regardless  of  grammar,  "  me  dissonam  refundit, 


BELGIUM  SELL-FOUNDERS.  355 

1664."  "Claes  Noorden  Johan  Albert  de  Grave  me  fece- 
runt  Amstelodamia,  1714." 

The  above  were  copied  in  the  belfry  of  St.  Peter's  at 
Louvain.  The  name  of  Bartholomeus  Goethale,  1680,  is 
found  in  St.  Stephen's  belfry  at  Ghent,  and  that  of  one  An- 
drew Steiliert,  1563,  at  Mechlin.  Other  obscure  names  oc- 
cur here  and  there  in  the  numberless  belfries  of  this  land 
of  bells,  but  the  carillon  of  Bruges  (which,  by  the  way,  is 
a  fac-simile  of  the  Antwerp  carillon,  and  consists  of  forty 
bells  and  one  large  Bourdon,  or  Cloche  de  7Viom/>Ae),  bears 
the  name  of  Dumery.  Sixteen  bells  at  Sottighen,  several 
at  Ghent,  and  many  other  places,  bear  the  same  name. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  most  prolific  of  all  the  founders  was 
Petrus  Hemony.  He  was  a  good  musician,  and  only  took 
to  bell-founding  late  in  life.  His  small  bells  are  exceed- 
ingly fine,  but  his  larger  bells  are  seldom  true.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  the  same  charge  may  be  brought  against 
several  of  Dumery's  bells  in  the  celebrated  carillon  at 
Bruges. 

"Petrus  Hemony  me  fecit,"  1658  to  '68,  is  the  motto 
most  familiar  to  the  bell-seeker  in  Belgium.  The  magnifi- 
cent Mechlin  chimes,  and  most  of  the  Antwerp  bells,  are 
by  him. 

Besides  the  forty  bells  which  form  the  carillon  at  Ant- 
werp, there  are  five  ancient  bells  of  special  interest  in  that 
tower.  These  five  are  rung  from  the  same  loft  at  an  ele- 
vation of  274  feet. 

The  oldest  is  called  "  Horrida ;"  it  is  the  ancient  tocsin, 
and  dates  from  1316.  It  is  a  queer,  long-shaped  bell,  and, 
out  of  consideration  for  its  age  and  infirmities,  has  of  late 
been  left  unrung. 

Next  comes  the  "  Curfew,"  which  hangs  somewhat  apart, 
and  is  rung  every  day  at  five,  twelve,  and  eight  o'clock. 

The  third  is  the  "  St.  Maria"  bell,  which  is  said  to  weiirh 


366  BELLS. 

4-£  tons ;  it  rang  for  the  first  time  when  Carl  the  Bold  en- 
tered Antwerp  in  1467,  and  is  still  in  excellent  condition. 

The  fourth  is  "  St.  Antoine." 

And  last,  but  greatest  and  best -beloved  of  all,  is  the 
"  Carolus."  It  was  given  by  Charles  V.  (Charles  Quint), 
takes  sixteen  men  to  swing  it,  and  is  said  to  weigh  7£ 
tons.  It  is  actually  composed  of  copper,  silver,  and  gold, 
and  is  estimated  at  £20,000.  The  clapper,  from  always 
striking  in  the  same  place,  has  much  worn  the  two  sides, 
although  now  it  is  rung  only  about  twice  a  year.  The 
Antwerpians  are  fonder  of  this  than  of  all  the  other  bells ; 
yet  it  must  be  confessed,  notwithstanding  the  incompara- 
ble richness  of  its  tone,  it  is  not  a  true  bell.  I  had  con- 
siderable difficulty,  during  the  greater  part  of  a  day  spent 
in  the  Antwerp  belfry,  in  gaining  access  to  this  monarch 
among  bells,  for  it  is  guarded  with  some  jealousy  by  the 
good  Anversois. 

After  some  trouble  I  got  into  the  loft  below  it,  where 
the  rope  hangs  with  its  sixteen  ends  for  the  ringers ;  but 
I  seemed  as  far  as  ever  from  the  bell.  It  appears  that  the 
loft  where  the  Carolus  and  its  four  companions  hang  is  sel- 
dom visited,  and  then  only  by  special  order.  At  length  I 
found  a  man  who,  for  a  consideration,  procured  the  keys, 
and  led  the  way  to  the  closed  door. 

In  another  moment  I  stood  beside  the  Carolus.  It  was 
not  without  emotion  that  I  walked  all  round  it,  and  then, 
climbing  up  on  the  huge  segment  of  the  wheel  that  swings 
it,  endeavored  in  vain  to  read  either  the  inscription  or  the 
date,  so  thickly  lay  the  green  rust  of  ages  about  the  long, 
thin  letters.  Creeping  underneath  its  brazen  dome,  I  found 
myself  close  to  the  enormous  clapper,  and  was  seized  with 
an  irrepressible  desire  to  hear  the  sound  of  the  mighty 
bell 

But,  alas !  where  were  the  sixteen  men  ?    It  might  take 


INSCRIPTIONS.  367 

that  number  to  move  the  bell ;  but  it  immediately  struck 
me  that  much  less  was  required  to  swing  the  clapper  as  it 
hung.  Seizing  it  with  all  my  might,  I  found  with  joy  that 
it  began  to  move,  and  I  swung  it  backward  and  forward 
until  it  began  to  near  the  sides.  At  last,  with  a  bang  like 
that  of  the  most  appalling  but  melodious  thunder,  the  clap- 
per struck  one  side  and  rushed  back ;  once,  and  twice,  and 
thrice  the  blow  was  repeated.  Deaf  to  the  entreaties  of 
my  guide,  who  was  outside  the  bell,  and  did  not  care  to 
come  in  at  the  risk  of  being  stunned  by  the  vibration,  not 
to  say  smashed  by  the  clapper,  I  felt  it  was  a  chance  that 
comes  but  once  in  a  lifetime,  and  so  I  rang  the  Carolus  un- 
til I  was  out  of  breath,  and  emerged  at  last  quite  deaf,  but 
triumphant. 

The  decorations  worked  in  bas-relief  around  some  of  the 
168  old  bells  are  extremely  beautiful,  while  the  in- 
inscnptions.  scrjptjons  are  often  highly  suggestive,  and  even 
touching.  These  decorations  are  usually  confined  to  the 
top  and  bottom  rims  of  the  bell,  and  are  in  low  relief,  so  as 
to  impede  the  vibration  as  little  as  possible.  At  Mechlin, 
on  a  bell  bearing  date  "1697,  Antwerp,"  there  is  an  amaz- 
ingly vigorous  hunt  through  a  forest  with  dogs  and  all 
kinds  of  wild  animals.  It  is  carried  right  round  the  bell, 
and  has  all  the  grace  and  freedom  of  a  spirited  sketch. 
On  one  of  Hemony's  bells,  dated  1674,  and  bearing  the  in- 
scription "  Laudate  Domini  omnes  Gentes,"  we  noticed  a 
long  procession  of  cherub  boys  dancing  and  ringing  flat 
hand-bells,  such  as  are  now  rung  before  the  Host  in  street 
processions. 

On  some  of  the  older  bells  the  Latin  Grammar  has  not 
always  been  properly  attended  to,  and  P. Van  den  Gheyn 
has  a  curious  affectation  of  printing  his  inscriptions  in  type 
of  all  sizes,  so  that  one  word  will  often  contain  letters 


368  BELLS. 

from  three  or  four  different  alphabets.  The  old  inscrip- 
tions are  frequently  illegible,  from  the  extreme  narrowness 
of  the  Gothic  type,  and  the  absence  of  any  space  between 
the  words.  One  of  the  Ghent  bells  bears  an  inscription 
which,  in  one  form  or  other,  is  frequently  found  in  the  Low 
Countries : 

"Mynem  naem  is  Roelant ; 
AJs  ick  clippe  dan  ist  brandt, 
Als  ick  luyde  dan  is  storm  im  Vlaenderland. " 

(Anglice — "My  name  is  Roelant ; 

When  I  toll,  then  it  is  for  a  fire ; 

When  I  chime,  then  there  is  stormy  weather  in  Flanders.") 

The  famous  Strasbourg  tower,  although,  unlike  the  Bel- 
gian towers,  it  possesses  no  carillon  and  but  nine  bells  in 
all,  is  remarkably  rich  in  inscriptions,  and  has  been  richer. 
Its  bells  are  interesting  enough  to  warrant  a  short  digres- 
sion. 

The  first,  or  "Holy  Ghost"  bell,  dated  "  1375,  3  nonas 
Augusti,"  weighs  about  eight  tons,  and  bears  the  beautiful 

motto — 

"  O  Rex  Glorias  Christae  veni  cum  Pace." 

.It  is  only  rung  when  two  fires  are  seen  in  the  town  at 
once. 

The  second  bell,  recast  1774,  is  named  "the  Recall,"  or 
the  Storm-bell.  In  past  times,  when  the  plain  of  Alsatia 
was  covered  with  forests  and  marsh  land,  this  bell  was  in- 
tended to  warn  the  traveler  of  the  approaching  storm-cloud 
as  it  was  seen  driving  from  the  Vosges  Mountains  toward 
the  plain.  It  was  also  rung  at  night  to  guide  him  to  the 
gates  of  the  city.  It  is  fitted  with  two  hammers,  and  is 
constantly  used. 

The  third,  the  "  Thor,"  or  Gate-bell,  is  rung  at  the  shut- 
ting and  opening  of  the  city  gates.  It  was  cast  in  1618, 
and  originally  bore  the  following  quaint  inscription : 


INSCRIPTIONS  368 

**  Dieses  Thor  Glocke  das  erst  mal  schallt 
Als  man  1618  sahlt 
Dass  Mgte  jahr  regnet  man 
Nach  doctor  Luther  Jubal  jahr 
Das  Bos  hinaus  das  Gut  hinein 
Zu  lauten  soil  igr  arbeit  seyn." 

Did  Mr.  Tennyson,  I  wonder,  read  this  inscription  before 
he  took  up  the  burden  of  the  old  bell's  song,  and  wrote, 

"  Ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new, 
*  *  *  * 

Bing  out  the  false,  ring  in  the  true  ?" 

In  1641  the  Thor  bell  cracked  and  was  recast.     It  brofce 
fifty  years  afterward,  and  was  recast  again  in  1651. 

The  "  Mittags,"  or  twelve-o'clock  bell,  is  rung  at  midday 
and  at  midnight.     The  old  bell  was  removed  at  the  time 
of  the  French  Revolution,  and  bore  the  inscription 
"Vox  ego  sum  vitae 
Voco  vos — orate — venite!" 

The  hanging  of  most  of  the  Strasbourg  bells  almost  out- 
side the  delicate  net-work  of  the  tower  is  highly  to  be 
commended.  They  can  be  well  heard  and  seen.  The  same 
remark  applies  to  Antwerp,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
in  such  towers  as  Mechlin  and  St.  Peter's  at  Louvain  many 
of  the  bells  are  so  smothered  up  as  to  sound  almost  muf- 
fled. Almost  all  the  bells  which  are  open  to  public  inspec- 
tion, and  which  can  be  reached,  bear  white  chalk  inscrip- 
tions to  the  effect  that  our  illustrious  countryman,  Jones 
of  London,  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  visit  the  bells  on 
such  and  such  a  day;  that  his  Christian  name  is  Tom  or 
Harry,  and  his  age  is,  etc.,  etc.  However,  on  the  stone 
walls  inside  the  Strasbourg  tower  there  are  some  more  in- 
teresting records.  I  copied  the  following :  I.  M.  H.  S., 
1587;  Klopstock,  1777;  Goethe,  1780;  Lavater,  1776; 
Montalembert,  1834;  and  Voltaire,  the  Vb  was  struck 
24 


370  BELLS. 

away  from  the  wall  by  lightning  in  1821,  but  has  been 
carefully  replaced  in  stucco. 

In  Mechlin  tower  I  noticed  the  initials  J.  R.,  in  the  deep 
sill  of  the  staircase- window ;  underneath  is  a  slight  design 
of  a  rose  window,  apparently  sketched  with  the  point  of  a 
compass. 

Close  inside  the  clock-tower  of  Antwerp  Cathedral,  and 
sheltered  by  the  skeleton  clock  dial,  although  exposed  to 
the  weather,  is  scratched  the  name  Darden,  1670.  It  is 
strange,  but  true,  that  what  we  condemn  in  tourists  is  re- 
garded by  us  with  interest  when  the  tourist  happens  to  be 
eminent,  or  even  when  he  happens  to  have  been  dead  for 
two  or  three  hundred  years. 

For  the  sake  of  contrast,  it  may  now  be  worth  while  to 
169         look  into  one  or  two  English  belfries  before  I 

Westminster3  close  this  PaPer-  l  wil1  8elect  St  Paul's,  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  the  Clock  Tower. 
The  bells  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  are  four  in  number ; 
three  belong  to  the  clock,  and  hang  in  the  southwest  tow- 
er;  one  small  one  hangs  alone  in  the  northwest  tower,  and 
is  rung  for  service.  The  largest  bell  weighs  over  five  tons, 
and  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  been  recast  from  the 
metal  of  "  Great  Tom"  of  Westminster.  The  truth  seems 
to  be  as  follows.  "  Great  Tom"  was  no  doubt  at  one  time 
conveyed  from  Westminster  to  St.  Paul's,  but,  having 
cracked,  it  became  necessary  either  to  recast  it  or  to  pro- 
cure a  new  one.  The  bell-metal  was  considered  so  bad 
that,  by  the  advice  of  Richard  Phelps,  the  bell-founder,  a 
new  one  was  made  for  £627.  He  allowed  9^e?.  a  pound  for 
the  old  bell,  but  did  not  work  up  any  of  this  metal  for  the 
present  bell.  This  is  quite  certain,  as  I  have  the  best  au- 
thority for  saying  that  the  old  bell  was  not  removed  until 
the  new  bell  was  delivered  at  the  Cathedral.  The  inscrip- 


ST.  PAUL'S  AND  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY.  371 

tion  is  perfectly  legible,  and,  as  copied  on  a  particularly 
bright  morning  by  me,  runs  thus : 

"  Richard  Phelps  made  me.  1716." 

A  common  fleur-de-lis  pattern  runs  round  the  top,  varied 
only  by  tne  arms  of  the  Dean  and  Chapter,  while  the  bot- 
tom is  decorated  by  a  few  straight  lines.*  There  is  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  be  said  about  the  other  bells  except  that 
R.  Phelps  made  them,  and  they  are  all  more  or  less  out  of 
tune  in  themselves  and  with  each  other — a  fact  which  that 
truly  musical  people  whose  metropolis  they  adorn  will 
probably  be  prepared  to  deny  with  a  vehemence  equally 
patriotic  and  superfluous. 

On  ascending  the  Westminster  Abbey  tower  with  note- 
book and  candle,  after  being  told  that  the  bells  were  all 
rather  modern,  I  was  agreeably  surprised  to  find  at  least 
one  or  two  interesting  specimens.  There  are  in  all  seven 
bells.  Each  is  rung  by  a  rope  and  wheel,  and  has  a  clap- 
per inside ;  and,  in  addition  to  this,  each  is  acted  upon  by 
an  external  hammer,  worked  by  the  striking  apparatus  of 
the  clock.  They  are,  as  a  rule,  in  quite  as  good  condition 
as  the  Belgian  bells  of  an  equal  age.  The  largest  bears 
this  inscription : 

"Remember  John  Whitmell,  Isabel  his  wife,  and  William  Rus,  who 
first  gave  this  bell,  1430. 

"  New  cast  in  July,  1599,  and  in  April,  1738.  Richard  Phelps,  T.  Les- 
ter, fecit." 

The  oldest  bell,  somewhat  smaller,  dates  from  1583.  The 
next  oldest  is  the  second  largest  bell,  date  1598.  It  bears 
an  inscription — "  Timpanis  patrem  laudate  sonantibus  al- 
tum.  Gabriel  Goodman,  Decanus,  1598."  Gabriel  Good- 
man was  dean  1561  to  1601.  A  smaller  bell  bears  the  in- 
scription— 

*  This  bell  has  a  very  fine  tone,  and  is  rung  at  the  hour. 


372  BELLS. 

"  Thomas  Lester,  London,  made  me, 
And  with  the  rest  I  will  agree, 
Seventeen  hundred  and  forty-three." 

Another  small  bell  by  T.  Lester  bears  the  same  date,  while 
the  smallest  of  all,  hung  at  an  almost  inaccessible  height, 
is  by  Richard  Lester,  in  1738.  One  bell  bears  no  date.  It 
is  inscribed  "+  Christe  :  audi :  nos."  The  Rev.  Mr.  Ella- 
combe,  of  Clyst  St.  George,  a  well-known  writer  on  Bells, 
has  been  good  enough  to  send  me  an  extract  from  Notes 
and  Queries  by  Mr.  Thomas  Walesby,  giving  a  more  accu- 
rate and  detailed  account  of  the  Westminster  bells  than  I 
obtained  on  my  first  visit  to  the  tower. 

The  Westminster  bells  fail  to  inspire  us  with  much  in- 
terest. They  are  products  of  manufacture,  not  works  of 
art.  Unlike  almost  all  the  Belgian  bells,  they  are  one  + 
excepted  without  symbols  or  ornamentation  of  any  kind. 
There  has  been  no  labor  of  love  thrown  away  upon  them 
— not  a  spray  or  a  branch  relieves  the  monotony  of  the 
metal  surface.  Not  even  a  monogram,  or  a  crown,  or  an 
ecclesiastical  coat  of  arms  is  bestowed  upon  any  of  them. 
The  Latin,  like  a  great  deal  of  bell  Latin,  is  very  bad  ;  the 
spelling  is  equally  indifferent.  The  type  is  poor,  and  de- 
void of  fancy ;  and  the  wax  in  which  the  letters  were  orig- 
inally moulded  has  been  so  carelessly  laid  on,  that  the  tops 
of  T's  are  often  twisted  down  upon  the  letter,  and  the  dots 
of  the  full  stops  have  got  displaced.  It  is  interesting  to 
notice  that  all  the  dates,  even  the  earliest,  1583,  are  in  the 
Arabic,  and  not,  as  we  should  naturally  expect,  in  the  Ro- 
man numerals. 

By  an  easy  transition,  we  may  pass  from  the  gray  majes- 
170      tic  towers  of  the  old  Abbey  to  the  big,  square-sided 
Big  Ben.  pjj}ar  with  the  tall  night-cap,  commonly  known  as 
the  Westminster  Clock  Tower. 


BIG  BEN.  373 

This  top-heavy  edifice  contains  some  of  the  latest  speci- 
mens of  English  bell-founding  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  I  must  do  it  the  justice  to  say  that  it  is  better  inside 
than  out.  On  a  close  inspection  the  massiveness  of  the 
structure  is  imposing,  and  it  is  really  surprising  that  such 
a  huge  amount  of  stone-work  should  be  so  wanting  in  ex- 
ternal dignity.  The  walls  are  of  a  uniform  thickness  of 
between  five  and  six  feet,  and  are  little  likely  ever  to  be 
shaken  down,  like  the  Pekin  Tower,  by  the  vibration  of  the 
bells.  There  is  a  wide  passage  all  round  the  top  of  the 
tower  between  the  white  enameled  glass  clock-face  and  its 
illuminating  apparatus.  The  proportions  of  the  four  disks 
are  truly  colossal,  measuring  each  over  70  feet  in  circum- 
ference. Each  is  illuminated  by  a  blazing  wall  of  light  be- 
hind it,  composed  of  five  horizontal  gas  tubes,  with  many 
jets,  of  an  average  length  of  17  feet  apiece.  Thus  the  four 
clock  disks,  that  can  be  seen  so  well  from  all  parts  of  Lon- 
don at  night,  owe  their  light-house  radiance  to  a  furnace 
composed  of  no  less  than  340  feet  of  gas  pipes.  Outside, 
the  mighty  minute-hand  swings  visibly  round,  traveling  at 
the  pace  of  a  foot  a  minute.  The  machinery  of  the  clock, 
to  which  a  large  room  is  devoted,  being  on  a  colossal  scale, 
looks  extremely  simple.  It  bears  the  inscription, "  This 
clock  was  made  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1854,  by  Frederick 
Dent,  from  the  designs  of  Edmund  Becket  Denison,  Q.  C." 
Telegraph  wires  from  Greenwich  are  introduced  into  the 
interior  of  the  works  in  order  to  regulate  the  time.  We 
may  select  a  quarter  to  twelve  o'clock  to  enter  the  im- 
mense belfry,  containing  the  five  bells.  The  iron  frame- 
work in  which  they  are  swung  is  at  once  neat  and  massive, 
and  contrasts  with  the  rough  and  ponderous  timbers  of  the 
older  belfries  very  much  as  a  modern  iron-clad  might  con- 
trast with  an  ancient  man-of-war.  We  feel  in  the  presence 
of  these  modern  structures  that  we  have  gained  much  and 


3*74  BELLS. 

lost  something.  The  mechanical  element  preponderates 
over  the  human,  and  in  the  presence  of  these  cast-iron  col- 
umns, symmetrical  girders,  and  neat  bolts,  we  experience 
a  sense  of  power,  but  without  the  particular  dignity  which 
belongs  to  the  heavy  and  cumbrous  rafters  of  the  more  an- 
cient towers.  The  very  same  feeling  is  inspired  by  the 
massive  modern  iron-work  in  the  belfry  of  Cologne  Cathe- 
dral. 

Big  Ben  hangs  in  the  middle,  and  the  four  quarter-bells 
at  the  four  corners.  The  original  big  bell  was  cast  by  War- 
ner, of  Clerkenwell,  who  is  also  the  founder  of  the  four 
quarter-bells.  This  bell,  having  cracked,  was  replaced  by 
Ben,  from  the  foundery  of  George  Mears.  It  bears  the  fol- 
lowing inscription : 

"  This  bell,  weighing  13  tons  10  cwt.  3  qrs.  15  Ibs.,  was  cast  by  George 
Mears,  at  Whitechapel,  for  the  clock  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  under 
the  direction  of  Edmund  Becket  Denison,  Q.  C.,  in  the  21  t  year  of  the 
reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  MDCCCLVIII." 

The  decorations  round  the  top  are  of  the  hard  Gothic  type 
of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  On  one  side  of  the  bell  is 
the  ordinary  raised  heraldic  grating,  and  on  the  other  are 
the  arms  of  England.  The  letters  are  of  the  worst  possi- 
ble kind  of  that  narrow  Gothic  type  which  makes  the  de- 
spair of  the  antiquarian.  In  a  couple  of  hundred  years, 
when  the  rust  and  mould,  which  have  already  begun  to  ac- 
cumulate in  our  wretched  English  atmosphere,  has  clotted 
the  letters  together  and  confused  the  tops,  we  may  safely 
predict  that  this  inscription  will  be  entirely  illegible. 

The  largest  of  the  four  quarter-bells,  cast  in  1856  by 
Warner,  weighs  3  tons  1 7  cwt.  2  qrs. ;  the  second  weighs 
1  ton  1 3  cwt.  2  qrs. ;  the  third,  1  ton  5  cwt.  1  qr. ;  the 
fourth,  1  ton  1  cwt. 

After  seeking  for  some  quaint  text,  or  solemn  dedica- 
tion, which  should  convey  to  posterity  some  idea  of  the 


BIO  BEN.  375 

founder's  reverence  for  his  work  or  taste  for  his  art,  I  dis- 
covered the  following  noble  and  original  inscription:  "John 
Warner  and  Sons,  Crescent  Foundery,  1857 ;"  then  follows 
her  Britannic  majesty's  arms,  and,  underneath,  the  strik- 
ing word  "  Patent."  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  Bel- 
gian bells,  on  which  the  founder — half  poet,  half  artist — 
has  printed  the  fair  forms  that  seemed  forever  rising  in  his 
free  and  fertile  imagination.  How  often  do  we  feel,  as  we 
note  the  graceful  tracery,  and  the  infinitely  varied  groups, 
just  sufficiently  unstudied  to  be  full  of  feeling,  that  the 
artist  has  been  tracing  memories  of  netted  branches,  be- 
loved faces,  or  nature's  own  hieroglyphics  written  upon 
flowers  and  sea-shells !  There  is  one  bell  in  a  dark  corner 
of  a  Louvain  belfry,  nearly  plain,  only  against  the  side  of 
it  a  forest  leaf  has,  as  it  were,  been  blown  and  changed  to 
iron,  with  every  wreb-like  vein  perfect  —  but,  of  course,  a 
forest  leaf  is  a  poor  thing  compared  to  a  "  Patent." 

Neither  in  the  Abbey,  nor  St.  Paul's,  nor  the  Clock  Tow- 
er do  we  find  the  bells  have  any  higher  vocation  than  that 
of  beating  the  tom-tom.  They  do  not  call  the  citizens  "to 
work  and  pray."  They  remind  them  of  no  One  above  the 
toiling  and  moiling  crowd ;  of  no  changeless  and  eternal 
sympathy  with  man,  his  joys  and  his  sorrows.  They  give 
no  warning  note  of  fire,  of  pestilence,  of  battle,  or  any  oth- 
er peril.  There  are  no  Peals  of  Triumph,  no  Storm-bells, 
no  Salvators — merely  Old  Toms  and  Big  Bens. 

Big  Ben  is  cracked,  and  his  tone  grows  sensibly  worse 
every  year — I  might  almost  say  every  month.  Yet,  con- 
sidering he  is  8-£  inches  thick,  we  can  hardly  be  surprised 
that  the  crack  does  not  go  right  through  him  (1871).  It  is 
said  that  the  designer  of  the  bell  insisted  upon  the  metals 
being  mixed  on  scientific  principles  and  in  certain  propor- 
tions ;  and  it  is  rumored  that,  had  the  advice  of  the  founder 
been  followed,  and  the  metals  mixed  as  only  a  practical 


376  BELLS. 

founder  knows  how,  the  bell  would  not  have  cracked.  On 
this  subject  I  can  not  pretend  to  have  even  an  opinion. 
Big  Ben  is  not  a  true  bell.  He  suffers  from  a  flat  third. 
His  unhappy  brother  Patent,  who  is,  nevertheless,  so  far  in 
his  right  mind  as  to  be  still  uncracked  (we  allude  to  the 
next  largest  bell,  which  hangs  at  one  of  the  corners),  is  no 
more  true  than  his  magnified  relative.  If  I  am  not  very 
much  mistaken,  he  is  afflicted  with  a  sharp  third.  To 
crown  all,  I  fear  it  must  be  confessed  (but  on  this  subject 
I  would  willingly  bow  to  the  decision  of  Sir  Sterndale  Ben- 
nett or  Sir  Michael  Costa)  that  none  of  the  bells  are  in 
tune  with  each  other.  The  intended  intervals  are  indeed 
suggested,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  maintained  by  any  musi- 
cian that  the  dissonant  clangor  which  is  heard  a  quarter 
before  each  hour  is  any  thing  more  than  a  vague  approach 
to  the  intended  harmonic  sequence. 

The  excited  citizens  of  Mechlin  or  Antwerp  would  have 
had  these  bells  down  after  their  first  tuneless  attempt  to 
play  the  quarter ;  but  the  strength  of  old  England  lies 
more  in  patents  than  tuning-forks — so  we  must  still  cry, 
"  Vive  le  mauvais  quart-d'heure !" 

.  I  have  before  mentioned  that  one  bell  in  the  neighboring 
tower  of  the  Abbey,  on  which  is  inscribed  "  John  Lester 
made  me,"  etc.,  possesses  a  laudable  desire  "  with  the  rest" 
to  "agree."  We  may  regret  that  its  aspiration  rose  no 
higher;  and,  still  more,  that,  modest  as  it  is,  it  was  not 
destined  to  be  realized.  But  if  both  the  Clock  Tower  and 
the  Abbey  Tower  are  thus  discordant  in  themselves  and 
with  each  other,  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  agree  ex- 
cellently well  in  disagreeing. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  hard  upon  English  bells,  and  I  con- 
fess that  I  have  seen  more  of  foreign  than  of  English  ones, 
although  since  writing  the  above  I  have  inspected  a  great 
many  English  towers,  among  them  Peterborough,  York, 


BIG  BEN:  877 

Lichfield,  and  Durham ;  yet  such  specimens  as  I  have  seen 
have  not  inspired  me  with  much  enthusiasm,  and  it  is  with 
a  feeling  of  relief  that  I  turn  even  from  such  celebrated 
belfries  as  St.  Paul's  and  Westminster  Abbey  to  the  old 
cathedrals  of  Belgium,  with  their  musical  chimes  and  their 
splendid  carillons. 


CARILLONS. 


IV. 

THE  foot  sinks  into  black  dust  at  least  an  inch  thick. 

1T1         A  startled  owl  sweeps  out  of  the  old  belfry  win- 

Our  Belfries.  ^Qw .  tne  s}iutters  are  broken,  and  let  in  some 

light,  and  plenty  of  wind  and  rain  in  winter.  The  cement 
inside  the  steeple  has  rotted  away,  and  the  soft  stone  is 
crumbling  unheeded.  Some  day  the  noble  old  tower  will 
be  proclaimed  unsafe,  and  if  no  funds  are  forthcoming, 
twenty  feet  will  be  taken  off  it,  and  the  peal  of  bells  will 
have  to  come  down.  It  requires  no  prophet  to  foretell 
this ;  one  glance  is  sufficient.  Every  thing  is  already  rot- 
ting and  rusting.  The  inscriptions  on  the  six  or  eight  great 
bells  are  almost  illegible ;  the  beams  which  support  them 
have  lost  their  rivets'  heads,  and  are  all  loose,  probably 
unsafe ;  the  unpainted  wheels  are  cracked,  and  every  time 
the  bells  ring  the  friction  about  the  pivots  from  the  dust 
and  dirt  which  has  accumulated  and  worked  into  them  is 
very  great. 

We  may  well  ask  Builders,  Architects,  Deans  and  Chap- 
ters in  general,  in  these  days  of  church  restoration,  how 
they  can  account  for  such  a  state  of  things  in  so  many 
otherwise  well-restored  churches?  Why  are  mighty  dust- 
heaps  and  vagrant  owls  almost  invariably  to  be  found 
in  the  belfry?  Alas!  because  the  belfry  is  the  one  spot  in 
the  church  which  is  hardly  ever  visited.  When  a  rope 
breaks,  or  a  wheel  gets  out  of  order,  some  one  climbs  up 


OUR  BELFRIES.  379 

and  mends  it.  When  an  antiquarian  wishes  to  see  some 
famous  peal,  or  copy  the  legend  upon  some  bell,  he  gets 
permission  to  ascend  the  tower — perhaps  this  may  happen 
once  in  a  year.  Yet  the  bells  are  often  the  most  interest- 
ing things  about  the  church.  They  have  their  histories, 
and  the  few  words  inscribed  upon  them  are  not  unfre- 
quently  very  quaint  and  suggestive.  But  who  is  to  stum- 
ble up  the  old  decayed  stairs,  or  plunge  into  the  dust  and 
filth  of  centuries,  at  the  risk  of  breaking  his  neck  ?  Only 
a  few  enthusiasts,  who  are  powerless  to  help  the  poor  bells 
in  their  corrosion,  and  the  poor  towers  in  their  rottenness. 
The  notion  that  there  is  nothing  to  do  up  in  the  belfry 
after  the  bells  are  hung  but  to  let  them  swing  and  every 
thing  else  rot,  seems  to  be  a  very  prevalent  one.  This 
natural  process  is  at  all  events  going  on  in  many  cathedral 
towers  in  England  at  this  moment.  Thousands  are  spent 
annually  upon  the  outward  decorations ;  every  Gothic  de- 
tail is  carefully  replaced,  every  mullion  repaired ;  the  inte- 
rior is  rehabilitated  by  the  best  architects ;  all  is  scrupu- 
lously clean  about  the  nave  and  chancel,  and  side  aisles 
and  sacristy,  and  not  even  an  organ-pipe  is  allowed  to  get 
out  of  tune ;  but  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  skeleton  in  the 
house — we  need  not  descend  into  the  vaults  to  find  it — our 
skeleton  is  in  the  belfry.  His  bones  are  the  rotten  tim- 
bers, his  dust  is  the  indescribable  accumulations  of  ages — 
the  vaults  are  clean  in  comparison  with  the  belfry.  Open 
yonder  little  door  at  the  corner  of  the  nave,  and  begin  the 
dark  ascent ;  before  you  have  gone  far  you  will  sigh  for 
the  trim  staircase  that  leads  down  to  the  vaults.  Enter 
the  windy,  dirty,  rotten  room  where  the  poor  old  bells  that 
can  not  die  are  allowed  to  mildew  and  crack  for  want  of  a 
little  attention,  until  they  ring  the  tower  down  in  the  an- 
gry resonance  of  their  revenge.  You  will  think  of  the 
well-kept  monuments  in  the  quiet  vaults  below,  where  the 


380  CARILLONS. 

dead  lie  decently  covered  in,  and  where  the  carefully-swept 
floor  (a  trifle  damp,  maybe)  reveals  many  a  well-worn,  but 
still  legible  epitaph  or  funereal  symbol 

If  the  care  of  belfries  and  tower  walls  were  a  mere  afiair 

ITS.  of  sentiment,  there  might  be  room  for  regret,  but 
Bain.  hardly  matter  for  protest.  But,  indeed,  thousands 
of  pounds  might  be  annually  saved  if  the  any  thing  but 
silent  ruin  going  on  inside  our  church  towers  all  over  the 
land  were  occasionally  arrested  by  a  few  pounds'  worth  of 
timely  cement,  or  a  new  beam  or  rivet,  just  enough  to 
check  the  tremendously  increased  friction  caused  by  loose 
bell  machinery.  Every  antiquarian  has  had  to  mourn  the 
loss  of  church  towers  that  have  literally  been  rung  to 
pieces  by  the  bells.  Let  me  here  protest  against  the  sense- 
less practice  of  trying  to  tighten  the  loose  bell-works  by 
ramming  beams,  bricks,  and  wedges  between  the  loose 
works  and  the  wall  of  the  tower — many  a  belfry  has  been 
cracked  by  the  cruel  thrust  of  such  extemporized  repairs. 
This  is  perhaps  the  commonest  and  most  disastrous  trick 
which  ignorant  carpenters  are  in  the  habit  of  playing  in 
church  towers.  The  great  Bell  of  Time  will  no  doubt  ring 
down  every  tower  in  the  land  sooner  or  later,  but  at  pres- 
ent, instead  of  arresting  his  action,  we  assist  him  as  much 
as  possible  by  pretending  not  to  see  the  ravages  he  is  mak- 
ing, or  by  helping  with  our  own  brutal  and  clumsy  wedges. 

The  other  day  I  ascended  the  tower  of  one  of  the  most 
beautifully-restored  cathedrals  in  England.  It  was  by  no 
means  as  badly  kept  as  many;  I  therefore  select  it  as  a 
good  average  specimen  to  describe. 

The  tower  and  spire  are  of  red  sandstone,  massive,  but 
soft,  and  therefore  specially  dependent  upon  good  cement 
and  protection  from  the  weather.  The  shutters  were,  as 
usual,  old  and  rotting;  large  gaps  admitted  the  rain  and 


WASTE  AND  RUIN.  381 

wind,  whose  action  was  abundantly  manifest  upon  the 
flakes  of  soft  stone  which  lined  the  interior  of  the  spire:  in 
places  the  old  cement  had  completely  fallen  out,  but  the 
spire  may  still  stand  for  another  hundred  years  or  more, 
after  which  it  will  have  to  be  taken  down  or  replaced  at 
enormous  cost.  The  bell  machinery,  like  every  machin- 
ery intended  for  mere  peals  (not  carillons),  was  of  course 
of  the  roughest  kind — the  old  primitive  wheel,  and  nothing 
more.  This  simple,  and,  at  the  same  time,  cumbrous  ap- 
paratus never  can  work  smoothly  on  a  large  scale,  and 
more  complicated  works,  which  would  save  half  the  fric- 
tion, might  easily  be  devised;  but  then  who  cares  what 
the  works  up  in  the  belfry  are  like?  The  tower  may  in- 
deed come  down  by-and-by,  but  it  will  last  our  time,  and 
the  piety  of  posterity  will  doubtless  build  another. 

There  are  ten  bells  in  L Cathedral,  of  which  I  am 

speaking,  the  largest  weighing  if  tons.  These  bells  are  in 
pretty  constant  use.  On  examining  the  wheels,  I  found 
them  all  to  be  more  or  less  rough,  rotten,  and  split.  Each 
wheel,  of  course,  swung  between  two  stout  beams.  There 
was  a  rest  for  the  axle  of  the  wheel  provided  upon  the  sur- 
face of  each  of  them,  while  a  piece  of  wood  kept  fast  by  a 
movable  rivet  was  fitted  over  the  indentation  in  which  the 
axle-tree  worked,  so  as  to  prevent  the  wheel  from  rising 
and  jolting  in  the  beams  when  swung.  I  had  the  curiosity 
to  go  round  and  examine  each  socket.  In  every  case  the 
rivet  was  out,  lying  on  the  beam,  or  on  the  floor,  or  lost ; 
consequently,  whenever  the  peal  is  rung,  the  jolting  and 
creaking  alone  must,  in  the  long  run,  greatly  injure  the 
tower.  Indeed,  I  feel  convinced  that,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  it  is  not  the  sound  of  the  bells  so  much  as  the  unneces- 
sary friction  of  the  neglected  bell  machinery,  with  its  fatal 
wedges,  which  ruins  our  towers  and  shakes  down  our 
church  spires. 


382  CARILLONS. 

But,  it  may  fairly  be  asked,  What  ought  to  be  done  ? 

m  I  profess  no  deep  architectural  knowledge,  but  a 
Remedies.  few  ODViou8  improvements  will,  no  doubt,  have 
already  suggested  themselves  to  the  reader's  mind.  First, 
let  architects  remember  that  the  towers  are  not  only  good 
for  bells,  but  also  for  lovers  of  scenery ;  and  let  them  re- 
pair the  staircases.  This  might  be  done  at  little  cost  by 
casing  the  worn-out  tower  steps  with  good  elm -boards, 
which  I  am  told,  on  good  authority,  would  last  as  long  as 
any  surface  of  stone,  and  would  certainly  be  more  easily 
as  well  as  more  cheaply  repaired.  Unless  the  staircase  is 
decent,  safe,  and  clean,  the  neighboring  panorama  of  hill 
and  dale,  land  and  water,  will  be  lost  to  all  but  a  few  ad- 
venturous climbers.  Then,  the  better  the  ascent,  the  more 
chance  there  is  of  the  belfry  being  visited  and  cared  for. 
And,  lastly,  if  the  stairs  are  mended,  perhaps  the  walls  of 
the  staircase — in  other  words,  the  fabric  of  the  tower  itself 
— might  claim  a  little  more  frequent  attention.  But  here 
are  the  bells:  why  should  they  be  eaten  up  with  corro- 
sion, and  covered  with  filth  and  mildew?  The  Belgian 
bell-founders  take  a  pride  in  sending  out  their  bells  smooth 
and  clean.  The  English  bell-founders  send  them  out  some- 
times with  bits  of  rough  metal  sticking  to  them  from  the 
mould,  and  full  of  pits  and  flaws.  Well  they  know  that 
none  will  care  for  the  bells,  or  notice  their  condition,  until 
they  finally  crack  or  tumble  down.  Why  turn  them  out 
clean  when  they  are  never  to  be  clean  again  ? 

But  the  bells  should  have  their  official,  like  the  clock. 
He  should  be  called  the  Bell-stoker.  He  should  rub  his 
bells  at  least  once  a  week,  so  as  to  keep  them  clean  and 
prevent  corrosion,  and  then  the  inscriptions  would  be  pre- 
served, and  the  surface  of  the  bells  being  protected  from 
disintegration,  the  sound  would  be  improved,  and  the  bells 
would  be  less  liable  to  crack.  The  stoker  should  keep  ev- 


REMEDIES.  383 

ery  rivet  in  its  place ;  the  wheels  and  beams  should  all  be 
varnished  or  painted  regularly.  I  have  visited  many  bel- 
fries at  home  and  abroad,  but  never  have  I  seen  a  bit  of 
paint  or  varnish  in  one  yet.  The  shutters  should  be  kept 
from  swinging,  with  their  flanges  sloping  downward,  so  as 
to  keep  the  wet  from  driving  in,  while  allowing  the  sound 
to  float  freely  out  and  down  upon  the  town.  But  a  far 
more  radical  change  is  required  in  the  machinery  of  the 
bells.  In  these  days  of  advanced  mechanical  appliances,  it 
is  strange  to  reflect  that  exactly  the  same  machinery  is 
now  used  to  swing  bells  as  was  used  in  China  thousands 
of  years  ago.  A  wheel  with  a  rope  round  it — that  and 
nothing  more.  The  bell-works  might  occupy  much  less 
room,  and  the  friction,  by  some  of  the  simplest  mechanical 
appliances,  might  be  reduced  to  almost  nothing.  An  eye 
for  the  belfry  is  a  thing  to  be  cultivated.  The  belfry 
should  look  like  a  fine  engine-room  in  a  first-class  factory. 
It  should  be  a  pleasure,  as  well  as  an  instructive  lesson,  to 
go  into  it.  When  all  was  in  motion,  every  thing  should 
be  so  neatly  fitted  and  thoroughly  oiled  that  we  should 
hear  no  sound  save  only  the  melodious  booming  of  the 
bells  themselves.  At  present,  when  the  bells  are  rung,  the 
belfry  appears  to  go  into  several  violent  convulsions,  cor- 
responding too  often  to  the  efforts  of  the  poor  ringers  be- 
low. At  last  the  wheel  is  induced  to  move  enough  for  the 
clapper  to  hit  the  bell  an  indefinite  kind  of  bang — an  ardu- 
ous operation,  which  may  or  may  not  be  repeated  in  some 
kind  of  rhythm,  according  as  the  ringer  may  or  may  not 
succeed  in  hitting  it  off  with  the  eccentric  machinery  up 
aloft.  I  do  not  wish  to  disparage  the  skill  of  our  bell- 
ringing  clubs,  though  when  their  bells  are  out  of  tune  and 
their  machinery  bad,  their  labor  is,  to  a  great  extent, 
wasted.  Change-ringing — "  triple  majors"  or  "  firing" — is, 
as  the  Church  Times  (which  ought  to  know)  remarks,  about 


384  CARILLONS. 

the  extent  which  the  art  has  reached  among  us.  "  Hark ! 
the  merry  Christ  Church  bells,"  and  such  like,  may  also  on 
some  occasions  be  heard,  and  little  more. 

Bells  were  not  made  for  towers,  but  towers  for  bells. 

174  Towers  were  originally  nothing  but  low  lanterns; 
aKJountiy  ^ut  wnen  bells  came  into  common  use  the  lantern 
again.  wag  hoist;e(j  Up}  an(j  grew  into  a  spire  supported 
by  the  bell-room  or  tower.  One  would  have  thought  that 
this  fact  alone,  that  so  many  noble  structures  owe  their  ex- 
istence to  bells,  might  have  invested  bells  with  a  superior 
dignity,  and  given  them  an  honorable  place  in  the  affec- 
tion of  a  church-and-chapel-going  nation  like  our  own. 
But  probably  the  only  influence  which  will  ever  be  search- 
ing and  powerful  enough  to  get  the  wrongs  of  our  bells 
and  belfries  righted  is  the  influence  of  a  more  diffused  mu- 
sical taste.  No  one  in  England  really  associates  the  bells 
in  our  towers  with  musical  progressions  and  musical  nota- 
tion. The  roughest  possible  attempt  at  an  octave  is 
thought  sufficient,  and  the  most  discordant  sequences  are 
considered  sweet  and  lovely.  The  English  people  do  not 
seem  to  be  aware  that  a  bell  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  musical 
note ;  that  consequently  a  peal  of  bells  is,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, a  kind  of  musical  instrument,  and  under  some 
circumstances  a  very  fine  kind.  With  all  the  musical 
agencies,  and  the  concerts,  and  the  money,  and  the  enthu- 
siasm which  are  annually  devoted  to  music  in  England,  we 
have  yet  much  to  learn — so  much  that  at  times  the  pros- 
pect seems  hopeless.  What  shall  we  say  to  a  nation  that 
tolerates  with  scarcely  a  protest  German  bands  in  every 
possible  state  of  decay  ? — bands  made  out  of  a  sort  of 
Ginx's  Babies  with  bugles,  horrid  clarionets,  and  battered 
brass  tubes  blown  by  asthmatic  refugees.  We  are  not  al- 
luding to  some  really  good  German  bands  whinh  conde- 


O  US  MUSICAL  CO  UNTIL  T  A  GAIN.  385 

scend  to  the  use  of  music-desks  and  the  kettle-drum ;  but 
to  those  fiendish  nomads  who  congregate  together  in  our 
streets  without  any  other  principle  of  cohesion  except  what 
may  be  found  in  a  dogged  conviction  that  although  each 
one  is  incapable  of  playing  alone,  yet  all  together  may 
have  the  power  of  creating  such  a  brazen  pandemonium 
that  sooner  or  later  men  must  pay  them  to  leave  off. 
What  shall  we  say  to  a  people  who  will  hear  without  re- 
morse their  favorite  tunes  on  the  barrel-organs  of  the  pe- 
riod ?  Legislation  has  indeed  been  directed  against  every 
form  of  street  music  because  it  is  noisy,  but  never  because 
it  is  unmusical.  In  Italy  the  government  stops  street  or- 
gans which  are  out  of  tune.  In  England  no  distinction 
whatever  is  drawn  between  street  noise  and  street  music. 
As  long  as  multitudes  are  content  to  have  piano -fortea 
without  having  them  in  tune,  as  long  as  clergy  and  con- 
gregations are  content  to  put  up  with  the  most  squeaky 
form  of  the  harmonium,  as  long  as  organists  can  be  found 
to  play  upon  organs  as  much  out  of  tune  as  those  portable 
barrels  of  madness  and  distraction  carried  about  our  great 
country  by  the  wandering  minstrels  of  Italy,  as  long  as 
tunes  are  allowed  to  be  performed  for  Punch  and  Judy 
upon  the  discordant  pipe  of  Pan,  while  negro  melodists 
thrum  the  parchment  and  scratch  the  violin  with  more 
than  demoniac  energy,  so  long  it  is  unreasonable  to  ex- 
pect people  to  care  for  the  tonal  properties  of  their  bells. 

Great  bells  in  London  are  generally  considered  insuffer- 
able nuisances.  One  church  with  daily  service  materially 
injures  house  property  in  the  adjoining  streets.  But  if,  in- 
stead of  one  or  two  bells  cracked  or  false,  or,  at  any  rate, 
representing  no  true  melodic  progression,  there  were  a  doz- 
en musically  tuned  and  musically  played,  the  public  ear 
would  soon  appreciate  the  sound  as  an  agreeable  strain  of 
aerial  music,  instead  of  being  driven  mad  with  the  hoarse, 
25 


386  CARILLONS. 

gong-like  roar  of  some  incurably  sick  bell.  I  question 
whether  there  is  a  musically  true  chime  of  bells  in  the 
whole  of  England,  and  if  it  exists,!  doubt  whether  any  one 
knows  or  cares  for  its  musical  superiority.  Many  chimes 
are  respectable,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  bells, 
which, being  flat  or  sharp,  completely  destroy  every  change 
that  is  rung  upon  them,  yet  it  never  occurs  to  any  body 
to  have  the  offenders  down,  and  either  made  right  or  re- 
cast. The  Romsey  Abbey  bells,  for  instance,  an  octave 
peal  of  eight,  are  respectably  in  tune  with  the  exception  of 
the  seventh,  which  is  too  sharp,  but  which  has  hung  there 
and  been  rung  there  ever  since  1791  without  (as  far  as  we 
are  aware)  creating  any  unpleasant  sensation  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. Similar  charges  might  be  brought  against  most 
of  our  cathedral  and  metropolitan  chimes.  This  being  the 
case,  it  can  hardly  be  wondered  at  if  our  clock-chimes  are 
found  equally  out  of  tune.  I  have  before  expressed  my 
conviction  that  Big  Ben,  with  his  four  quarter-bells,  and 
the  Westminster  Abbey  chimes,  would  not  be  tolerated  for 
twenty-four  hours  by  any  town  in  Belgium.  As  bells  in- 
dividually they  may  be  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  but  as 
musical  notes  combined  for  musical  purposes  they  are  sim- 
ply abominable.  Yet  the  British  citizen  knows  it  not ;  nay, 
he  prides  himself  upon  the  colossal  Ben  though  cracked, 
he  plumes  himself  upon  the  romantic  chimes  in  the  gray 
towers  of  the  old  Abbey,  whereof  the  explanation  is  that 
the  bells  are  to  him  as  Time  and  Noise.  But  they  are 
something  worse  than  mere  noise ;  they  are  rank  discords 
and  corrupters  of  the  public  ear.  To  hear  a  dozen  or  so 
of  quarters  struck  out  of  tune  every  day  must  have  a  dis- 
astrous effect  upon  musical  taste.  It  makes  people  indif- 
ferent to  tune,  which  is  the  first  essential  of  music.  I  have 
heard  the  street-boys  whistling  Big  Ben's  quarters  deliber- 
ately out  of  tune.  The  government  would  no  doubt  smile 


THE  BELLS  OF  BELGIUM.  387 

at  the  notion  that  it  ought  to  prohibit  such  chimes  and 
all  such  public  discords  as  public  offenses  against  taste. 
Can  there  be  any  more  lamentable  proof  of  the  truth  of 
the  much-contested  sentence, "  The  English  are  not  a  mu- 
sical people,"  than  the  fact  that  of  all  the  lords  and  com- 
mons, the  elite  of  the  land,  who  sit  at  Westminster  not  a 
stone's  throw  from  Big  Ben,  perhaps  not  half  a  dozen  are 
aware  that  Big  Ben  and  his  four  attendant  quarter-bells 
are  hideously  out  of  tune  ? 

Willingly  do  I  escape  from  the  din  and  discord  of  Eng- 
iT5.       lish  belfries  to  Belgium,  loving  and  beloved  of 

The  Bells 

of  Belgium,    bells. 

The  wind  that  sweeps  over  her  campagnas  and  fertile 
levels  is  full  of  broken  but  melodious  whispers. 

In  Belgium,  day  and  night  are  set  to  music — music  on  a 
scale  more  colossal  than  that  of  the  largest  orchestra  ever 
yet  heard — music  more  penetrating  than  the  loudest  trum- 
pet or  organ  blast ;  for,  however  large  the  chorus  and  or- 
chestra, it  would  scarcely  be  possible,  in  the  east  end  of 
London,  to  hear  a  concert  at  Westminster,  yet,  on  still 
nights,  with  a  gentle  wind  blowing,  we  have  often  at  that 
distance  distinctly  heard  Big  Ben.  Well,  in  Belgium  every 
seven  minutes  there  is  bell-music,  not  only  for  the  whole 
town,  but  for  the  country  miles  round.  Those  carillons, 
playing  the  same  cheerful  air  every  hour  throughout  the 
year,  at  last  acquire  a  strange  fascination  over  one  who  lives 
within  sight  and  hearing  of  some  such  gray  old  church  as 
St.  Rombaud  at  Mechlin.  The  listener  has  heard  them  at 
moments  when,  elated  with  hope,  he  was  looking  forward 
to  the  almost  immediate  realization  of  some  long-desired 
joy,  and  the  melody  of  the  bells  has  filled  him  with  exul- 
tation. He  has  heard  the  same  strain  rung  out  in  seasons 
of  depression,  and  his  heart  has  leaped  up  at  the  sound  so 


388  CARILLONS. 

filled  with  memories.  The  bells  may  have  again  smitten 
upon  his  ear  at  the  moment  when  some  tragic  news  has 
reached  him ;  or  out  in  the  fields,  steeped  in  yellow  sun- 
shine, above  the  hum  of  insect  life,  the  same  tune  has  come 
to  him  between  the  pauses  of  the  summer  wind ;  or  deep 
in  his  dreams  through  sleep,  without  awakening  him,  the 
bells  have  somehow  mingled  their  old  rhythm  with  his  dor- 
mant fancies,  until  at  last  their  sound  becomes  so  charged 
with  the  incidents  and  emotions  of  his  life  that  they  are 
almost  as  much  a  part  of  him  as  his  memory.  When  he 
comes  to  leave  a  town  where  he  has  dwelt  for  some  time, 
he  feels  as  if  he  had  lost  a  whole  side  of  life ;  he  misses  the 
sound  of  the  friendly  bells,  which  always  had  the  power, 
by  force  of  association,  to  call  up  some  emotion  congenial 
to  the  moment  —  the  sympathetic  bells  which  seemed  al- 
ways equally  ready  to  weep  or  to  rejoice  with  him — the 
unobtrusive  bells  so  familiar  as  never  to  be  a  disturbance 
— the  gentle  bells  that  could,  as  it  were,  ring  aside  to  them- 
selves when  not  wanted,  and  yet  never  failed  to  minister 
to  the  listening  spirit  whenever  it  stood  in  need  of  their 
companionship  or  sympathy. 

There  is  no  greater  mistake  than  to  suppose  that  bell 
17&  music  every  seven  minutes  is  an  unpleasant  dis- 
Beii MUSIC.  fcurbance  or  interruption;  its  very  frequency  en- 
ables it  to  become  completely  assimilated  to  our  every-day 
life.  Are  we  not  surrounded  by  natural  changes  and  ef- 
fects quite  as  marked  in  their  way  as  bell  music,  and  yet 
which  have  no  tendency  to  unsettle,  distract,  or  weary  us  ? 
How  loud  at  times  does  the  wind  blow ;  how  suddenly  on 
a,  dark  day  will  the  sun  burst  into  our  room  ;  how  shrill  is 
the  voice  of  our  canary,  which  at  last  we  hardly  heed  at 
all ;  how  often  does  a  rumbling  vehicle  pass  along  in  the 
streets — and  yet  we  cease  neither  reading  nor  writing  for 
any  of  these  J 


BELL  MUSIC.  389 

The  bells  musically  arranged  never  irritate  or  annoy  one 
in  Belgium.  Instead  of  time  floating  by  in  blank  and  mel- 
ancholy silence,  or  being  marked  by  harsh  and  brazen  clash- 
es, time  floats  on  there  upon  the  pulses  of  sweet  and  solemn 
music.  To  return  from  a  town  like  Mechlin  to  chimeless 
and  gong-like  England  is  like  coming  from  a  festival  to  a 
funeral. 

M.Victor  Hugo  staid  at  Mechlin  in  1837,  and  the  nov- 
elty of  the  almost  incessant  carillon  chimes  in  the  neigh- 
boring town  of  St.  Rombaud  appears,  not  unnaturally,  to 
have  driven  sleep  from  his  eyelids ;  yet  he  was  not  irri- 
tated or  angry  so  much  as  fascinated,  and  at  last  the  cre- 
ative instinct  awoke  in  the  poet,  and,  rising  from  his  bed, 
he  inscribed  by  moonlight  the  following  charming  lines 
with  a  diamond-ring  upon  the  window-pane : 

"  J'aime  le  carillon  dans  tes  cites  antiques, 
O  vieux  pays,  gardien  de  tes  mceurs  domestiques, 
Noble  Flandre,  oil  le  Nord  se  rechauffe  engourdi 
Au  soleil  de  Castille  et  s'accouple  au  Midi ! 
Le  carillon,  c'est  1'heure  inattendue  et  folle 
Que  1'oeil  croit  voir,  vetue  en  danseuse  espagnole 
Apparaitre  soudain  par  le  trou  vif  et  clair 
Que  ferait,  en  s'ouvrant,  une  porte  de  1'air. 
Elle  vient,  secouant  sur  les  toits  lethargiques 
Son  tablier  d'argent,  plein  de  notes  magiques, 
Reveillant  sans  pitie  les  dormeurs  ennuyeux, 
Sautant  a  petits  pas  comme  un  oiseau  joyeux, 
Vibrant,  ainsi  qu'un  dard  qui  tremble  dans  la  cible ; 
Par  un  frele  escalier  de  cristal  invisible, 
Effaree  et  dansante,  elle  descend  des  cieux ; 
Et  1'esprit,  ce  veilleur,  fait  d'oreilles  et  d'yeux, 
Tandis  qu'elle  va,  vient,  monte  et  descend  encore, 
Entend  de  marcke  en  marche  errer  son  pied  sonore  1" 

lrr  To  Belgium  belongs  the  honor  of  having  first 

The  Caribou,  xuiderstood  and  felt  bells  as  musical  notes,  and 


390  CARILLONS. 

devised  that  aerial  and  colossal  musical  instrument  known 
as  the  carillon. 

"  Carillon"  is  derived  from  the  Italian  word  quadriglio  or 
quadrille.  A  dreary  kind  of  dance  music,  of  which  many 
specimens  still  survive,  seems  under  this  name  to  have  come 
from  Italy,  and  been  widely  popular  throughout  Europe  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  People  hummed  the  quadriglio  in 
the  streets,  and  as  town  bells,  whether  in  the  cathedral  or 
in  the  town  belfry,  were  regarded  as  popular  institutions, 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  quadriglio  was  the  first 
kind  of  musical  tune  ever  arranged  for  a  peal  of  bells,  and 
that  these  peals  of  time-playing  bells  became  widely  famous 
under  the  name  of  Carillons. 

The  rise  of  bell  music  in  Belgium  was  sudden  and  rapid. 
In  the  sixteenth  century  the  use  of  several  bells  in  connec- 
tion with  town  clocks  was  common  enough.  Even  little 
tunes  were  played  at  the  quarters  and  half  hours.  The  ad- 
dition of  a  second  octave  was  clearly  only  a  matter  of  time. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  carillons  were  found  in  all  the 
principal  towns  of  Belgium,  and  between  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  all  the  finest  carillons  now  in  use, 
including  those  of  Malines,  Antwerp,  Bruges,  Ghent,  and 
Louvain,  were  set  up.  There  seems  to  have  been  no  limit 
to  the  number  of  bells,  except  the  space  and  strength  of 
the  belfry.  Antwerp  Cathedral  has  sixty-five  bells;  St. 
Rombaud,  Mechlin,  forty-four  bells ;  Bruges,  forty  bells  and 
one  bourdon,  or  heavy  bass  bell ;  Ghent,  thirty-nine ;  Tour- 
nay,  forty ;  Ste.  Gertrude,  at  Louvain,  forty. 

The  great  passion  and  genius  for  bells  which  called  these 
noble  carillons  into  existence  can  no  longer  be  said  to  be 
at  its  height.  The  Van  Aerschodts,  descendants  of  the 
great  bell-founding  family  of  the  Van  den  Gheyns,  proba- 
bly make  as  good  bells  as  their  forefathers,  or  better  ones ; 
and  certainly  the  younger  brother,  Severin  van  Aerschodt, 


THE  CARILLON.  391 

retains  much  of  the  artistic  feeling  and  genuine  pride  in  his 
bells  so  distinctive  of  the  old  founders.  M.  Severin  is  a 
good  sculptor,  and  works  easily  and  with  real  enthusiasm 
both  in  marble  and  in  bronze.  All  bell  machinery  can  be 
infinitely  better  made  now  than  ever ;  but,  notwithstanding 
the  love  of  the  Belgians  for  their  chimes  and  carillons,  and 
the  many  modern  improvements  that  have  been  recently 
made,  we  can  not  help  feeling  that  the  great  bell  period 
ended  in  1785  with  the  death  of  the  greatest  organist  and 
carillonueur  Belgium  has  ever  produced,  Matthias  van  den 
Gheyn. 

No  one  who  has  not  taken  the  trouble  to  examine  the 
machinery  used  for  ringing  these  enormous  suites  of  bells, 
many  of  which  weigh  singly  several  tons,  can  well  appre- 
ciate all  that  is  implied  in  the  words  "  Carillons  aux  clave- 
cins et  aux  tambours,"  or,  in  plain  English,  musical  chimes 
played  by  a  barrel  and  played  from  a  key-board. 

Up  in  every  well-stored  belfry  in  Belgium  there  is  a 
small  room  devoted  to  a  large  revolving  barrel,  exactly 
similar  in  principle  to  that  of  a  musical  box ;  it  is  fitted  all 
over  with  little  spikes,  each  of  which,  in  its  turn,  lifts  a 
tongue,  the  extremity  of  which  pulls  a  wire,  which  raises  a 
hammer,  which,  lastly,  falls  upon  a  bell  and  strikes  the  re- 
quired note  of  a  tune.  "We  have  only  to  imagine  a  barrel- 
organ  of  the  period,  in  which  the  revolving  barrel,  instead 
of  opening  a  succession  of  tubes,  pulls  a  succession  of  wires 
communicating  with  bell-hammers,  and  we  have  roughly 
the  conception  of  the  tambour-carillon. 

But  up  in  that  windy  quarter  there  is  another  far  more 
important  chamber,  the  room  of  the  clavecin,  or  key-board. 
We  found,  even  in  Belgium,  that  these  rooms,  once  the 
constant  resort  of  choice  musical  spirits,  and  a  great  cen- 
tre of  interest  to  the  whole  town,  were  now  but  seldom 
visited.  Some  of  the  clavecins,  like  that  in  Tournay  bel- 


392  CARILLONS. 

fry,  for  instance,  we  regret  to  say,  are  shockingly  out  of 
repair;  we  could  not  ascertain  that  there  was  any  one  in 
the  town  capable  of  playing  it,  or  that  it  had  been  played 
upon  recently  at  all.  Imagine,  instead  of  spikes  on  a  re- 
volving barrel  being  set  to  lift  wire-pulling  tongues,  the 
hand  of  man  performing  this  operation  by  simply  striking 
the  wire-pulling  key,  or  tongue,  and  we  have  the  rough 
conception  of  the  carillon-clavecin,  or  bells  played  from  a 
key-board.  The  usual  apparatus  of  the  carillon-clavecin  in 
Belgium,  we  are  bound  to  say,  is  extremely  rough.  It  pre- 
sents the  simple  spectacle  of  a  number  of  jutting  handles, 
of  about  the  size  and  look  of  small  rolling-pins,  each  of 
which  communicates  most  obviously  and  directly  with  a 
wire  which  pulls  the  bell-smiting  hammer  overhead.  The 
performer  has  this  rough  key-board  arranged  before  him 
in  semitones,  and  can  play  upon  it  just  as  a  piano  or  organ 
is  played  upon,  only  that,  instead  of  striking  the  keys,  or 
pegs,  with  his  finger,  he  has  to  administer  a  sharp  blow  to 
each  with  his  gloved  fist. 

How  with  such  a  machine  intricate  pieces  of  music,  and 

m         even  organ  voluntaries,  were  played,  as  we  know 

cariiionneurs.  they  were>  ig  a  my8tery  to  U8.    The  best  living 

carillonneurs  sometimes  attempt  a  rough  outline  of  some 
Italian  overture,  or  a  tune  with  variations,  which  is,  after 
all,  played  more  accurately  by  the  barrel ;  but  the  great 
masterpieces  of  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn,  which  have  late- 
ly been  unearthed  from  their  long  repose,  are  declared  to. 
be  quite  beyond  the  skill  of  any  player  now  living.  The 
inference  we  must  draw  is  sad  and  obvious.  TAie  age  of 
carillons  is  past,  the  art  of  playing  them  is  ra'pidly  becom- 
ing a  lost  art,  and  the  love  and  the  popular  passion  that 
once  was  lavished  upon  them  has  died  outo,  and  left  but  a 
pale  flame  in  the  breasts  of  the  worthy  citizens,  who  are 


CAXILLONXEURS.  393 

still  proud  of  their  traditions,  but  vastly  prefer  the  me- 
chanical performance  of  the  tambour  to  the  skill  of  any 
carillonneur  now  living. 

The  supply  of  high-class  carillonneurs  ceased  with  the 
demand ;  but  why  did  the  demand  cease  ?  The  only  ex- 
planation which  occurs  to  us  is  this :  the  carillonneur  was 
once  the  popular  music-maker  of  the  people  at  a  time  when 
good  music  was  scarce,  just  as  the  preacher  was  once  the 
popular  instructor  of  the  people  when  good  books  were 
scarce.  Now  the  people  can  get  music,  and  good  music, 
in  a  hundred  other  forms.  It  is  the  bands,  and  pianos,  and 
the  immense  multiplication  of  cheap  editions  of  music,  and 
the  generally  increased  facilities  of  making  music,  which 
have  combined  to  kill  the  carillonneurs  and  depose  caril- 
lons from  their  once  lordly  position  of  popular  favor  to  the 
subordinate  office  of  playing  tunes  to  the  clock. 

When  Peter  van  den  Gheyn,  the  bell-founder,  put  up  his 
modest  octave  of  bells  in  1562  at  Louvain,his  carillon  was 
doubtless  thought  a  miracle  of  tune-playing.  But  at  that 
time  German  music  did  not  exist.  Palestrina,  then  just 
emerging  from  obscurity,  was  hardly  understood  outside 
Italy.  Monteverde  and  Lulli  were  not  yet  born.  But 
when  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn,  the  carillonneur,  died,  Han- 
del and  Bach  had  already  passed  away,  Haydn  was  still  liv- 
ing, Mozart  was  at  his  zenith,  Beethoven  was  fifteen  years 
old,  and  every  form  of  modern  music  was  created,  and  al- 
ready widely  spread  throughout  Europe.  These  facts  seem 
to  us  to  explain  the  decreasing  attention  paid  to  carillon 
music  in  Belgium.  The  public  ear  has  now  become  glut- 
ted with  every  possible  form  of  music.  People  have  also 
become  fastidious  about  tune  and  harmony,  and  many  fine 
carillons  which  satisfied  our  forefathers  are  now  voted  well 
enough  for  clock  chimes,  but  not  for  serious  musical  per* 
formances. 


394  CARILLONS. 

There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  the  taste  for  carillon 
music  should  not  be  revived.  Bells  can  be  cast  in  perfect 
tune,  and  the  exquisite  English  machinery  for  playing 
them  ought  to  tempt  our  bell-founders  to  emulate  their 
Belgian  brothers  in  the  fine-toned  qualities  of  their  bells. 

Let  us  now  try  and  form  some  conception  of  what  has 
iT9.         actually  been  realized  by  skilled  players  on  the 

Matthias  van  J  J 

den  Gheyn.  carillon  key-board  by  glancing  at  some  ot  the 
carillon  music  still  extant,  and  assisting  in  imagination  at 
one  of  those  famous  carillon  seances  which  were  once  look- 
ed forward  to  by  the  Belgians  as  our  Handel  festivals  are 
now  looked  forward  to  by  the  lovers  of  music  in  England. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century  there  was  probably  no 
town  in  Belgium  more  frequented  than  the  ancient  and 
honorable  collegiate  town  of  Louvain.  Its  university  has 
always  had  a  splendid  reputation,  and  at  this  day  can 
boast  of  some  of  the  most  learned  men  in  Europe.  Its 
town  hall,  a  miracle  of  the  thirteenth-century  Gothic,  is 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  buildings  of  that  age.  The 
oak  carving  in  its  churches,  especially  that  of  Ste.  Ger- 
trude, is  of  unsurpassed  richness,  and  attests  the  enormous 
wealth  formerly  lavished  by  the  Louvainiers  upon  their 
churches.  The  library  is  the  best  kept  and  most  interest- 
ing in  Belgium,  and  the  set  of  bells  in  St.  Peter's  Church, 
if  not  the  finest,  can  at  least  boast  of  having  for  many 
years  been  presided  over  by  the  greatest  carillonneur  and 
one  of  the  most  truly  illustrious  composers  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn. 

On  the  1st  of  July,  1745,  the  town  of  Louvain  was  astir 
at  an  early  hour :  the  worthy  citizens  might  be  seen  chat- 
ting eagerly  at  their  shop  doors,  and  the  crowd  of  visitors 
who  had  been  pouring  into  the  town  the  day  before  were 
gathering  in  busy  groups  in  the  great  square  of  Louvain, 


MATTHIAS  VAN  DEN  OHEYN.  395 

which  is  bounded  on  one  side  by  the  town  hall,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  church  of  St.  Peter's.  Among  the  crowd 
might  be  observed  not  only  many  of  the  most  eminent  mu- 
sicians in  Belgium,  but  nobles,  connoisseurs,  and  musical 
amateurs,  who  had  assembled  from  all  parts  of  the  country 
to  hear  the  great  competition  for  the  important  post  of 
carillonneur  to  the  town  of  Louvain. 

All  the  principal  organists  of  the  place  were  to  com- 
pete :  and  among  them  a  young  man  aged  twenty-four, 
the  organist  of  St.  Peter's,  who  was  descended  from  the 
great  family  of  bell-founders  in  Belgium,  and  whose  name 
was  already  well  known  throughout  the  country,  Matthias 
van  den  Gheyn. 

The  nobility,  the  clergy,  the  magistrates,  the  burgomas- 
ters— in  short,  the  powers  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  had  as- 
sembled in  force  to  give  weight  to  the  proceedings.  As 
the  hour  approached,  not  only  the  great  square,  but  all  the 
streets  leading  to  it,  became  densely  thronged,  and  no 
doubt  the  demand  for  windows  at  Louvain,  over  against 
St.  Peter's  tower,  was  as  great  as  the  demand  for  balconies 
in  the  city  of  London  on  Lord  Mayor's  day. 

Each  competitor  was  to  play  at  sight  the  airs  which 
were  to  be  given  to  him  at  the  time,  and  the  same  pieces 
were  to  be  given  to  each  in  turn.  To  prevent  all  possible 
collusion  between  the  jury  and  the  players,  no  preludes 
whatever  were  to  be  permitted  before  the  performance  of 
the  pieces,  nor  were  the  judges  to  know  who  was  playing 
at  any  given  moment.  Lots  were  to  be  cast  in  the  strict- 
est secrecy,  and  the  players  were  to  take  their  seats  as  the 
lots  fell  upon  them.  The  names  of  the  trial  pieces  have 
been  preserved,  and  the  curiosity  of  posterity  may  derive 
some  satisfaction  from  the  perusal  of  the  following  list, 
highly  characteristic  of  the  musical  taste  of  that  epoch 
(1745)  in  Belgium :  "  La  Folie  d'Hispanie,"  "  La  Bergerie," 
"  Caprice,"  and  one  "Andante." 


396  CARILLONS. 

M.  Loret  got  through  his  task  very  creditably.  Next  to 
him  came  M.  Leblancq,  who  completely  broke  down  in  "  La 
Bergerie,"  being  unable  to  read  the  music.  M.  Van  Dries- 
sche  came  third,  and  gave  general  satisfaction.  M.  De 
Laet  was  fourth,  but  he  too  found  the  difficulties  of  "  La 
Bergerie"  insuperable,  and  gave  it  up  in  despair.  Lastly 
came  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn ;  but,  before  he  had  got 
through  his  task,  the  judges  and  the  great  assembly  be- 
sides had  probably  made  up  their  minds;  there  was  no 
comparison  between  them  and  his  predecessors.  Loret 
and  Van  Driessche,  both  eminent  professors,  were  indeed 
placed  second,  and  the  rest  were  not  worth  placing,  but 
beyond  all  shadow  of  a  doubt  the  last  competitor  was  the 
only  man  worthy  to  make  carillon  music  for  the  town  and 
neighborhood  of  Louvain,  and  accordingly  Van  den  Gheyn 
was  duly  installed  in  the  honorable  post  of  carillonneur, 
which  he  held  conjointly  with  that  of  organist  at  the 
church  of  St.  Peter's.  His  duties  consisted  in  playing  the 
bells  every  Sunday  for  the  people,  also  on  all  the  regular 
festivals  of  the  Church,  on  the  municipal  feast-days,  besides 
a  variety  of  special  occasions — in  short,  whenever  the  town 
thought  fit.  He  was  bound  to  have  his  bells  in  tune,  and 
forbidden  to  allow  any  one  to  take  his  place  as  deputy  on 
the  great  occasions.  His  salary  was  small,  but  there  were 
extra  fees  awarded  him  upon  great  occasions,  and,  on  the 
whole,  he  doubtless  found  his  post  tolerably  lucrative,  with- 
out being  by  any  means  a  sinecure. 

It  is  a  comfort  to  think  that  this  great  genius  was  not 
iso.  destined  always  to  spend  himself  upon  the 

Van  den  Gheyn'e 

Music.  trivially  popular  airs  of  the  period,  such  as 

appear  to  have  been  chosen  for  his  ordeal. 

The  indefatigable  efforts  of  the  Chevalier  Van  Elewyck 
have  resulted  in  the  discovery  and  restoration  to  the  world 


VAN  DEN  GHEYWS  MUSIC.  397 

of  more  than  fifty  compositions  belonging  to  this  great 
master,  who  has  indeed  had  a  narrow  escape  of  being  lost 
to  posterity.  We  quite  agree  with  MM.  Lemmens  and 
Fetis  that  some  of  the  "  Morceaux  Fugues"  (now  for  the 
first  time  published,  by  Schott  et  Cie.,  Brussels,  and  Regent 
Street,  London)  are  quite  equal,  as  far  as  they  go,  to  similar 
compositions  by  Handel  and  Bach ;  at  the  same  time,  they 
have  a  striking  individuality,  and  almost  wild  tenderness 
and  poetry  peculiarly  their  own.  As  there  is  no  reason 
why  these  splendid  compositions  should  any  longer  be  for- 
gotten, we  shall  make  no  apology  for  alluding  to  some  of 
their  prominent  characteristics.  And,  in  the  first  place,  let 
us  say  that  they  are  wonderful  examples  of  what  may  be 
inspired  by  bells,  and  of  the  kind  of  music  which  is  alone 
capable  of  making  an  effect  upon  the  carillon. 

The  "Morceaux  Fugues,"  though  quite  elaborate  enough 
for  the  piano  and  organ,  were  actually  played  by  Van  den 
Gheyn  upon  the  bells.  They  are  bell-like  in  the  extreme, 
full  of  the  most  plaintive  melody,  and  marked  by  peculiar 
effects,  which  nothing  but  bells  can  render  adequately.  If 
ever  we  are  to  have  effective  carillon  music,  these  composi- 
tions and  their  general  laws  must  be  closely  studied.  The 
difficulty  of  arranging  and  harmonizing  tunes  for  bells 
seems  to  baffle  all  attempts  hitherto  made  in  England. 
The  resonance  of  the  bell  renders  so  much  impracticable 
that  upon  piano  or  organ  is  highly  effective.  The  sounds 
run  into  each  other,  and  horrid  discords  result,  unless  the 
harmonies  are  skillfully  adapted  to  the  peculiarities  of  bell 
sound. 

In  this  adaptation,  Van  den  Gheyn,  as  we  might  suppose, 
is  a  master,  but  such  a  master  as  it  is  quite  impossible  for 
any  one  to  conceive  who  has  not  closely  studied  his  caril- 
lon music.  One  great  secret  of  bell-playing,  overlooked  in 
the  setting  of  all  our  barrels,  is  to  avoid  ever  striking  even 


398  CARILLONS. 

the  two  notes  of  a  simple  third  quite  simultaneously.  Let 
any  one  take  two  small  bells,  or  even  two  wine-glasses 
tuned  to  a  third.  Let  him  strike  them  exactly  at  the  same 
time,  and  he  will  hardly  get  the  sound  of  a  third  at  all ;  he 
will  only  get  a  confused  medley  of  vibrations ;  but  let  him 
strike  one  ever  so  little  before  or  after  the  other,  and  the 
ear  will  instantly  receive  so  definite  an  impression  of  a 
third,  that,  however  the  sounds  may  mix  afterward,  the 
musical  sense  will  rest  satisfied.  We  are  not  now  con- 
cerned with  the  reasons  of  this ;  it  is  simply  a  fact ;  and, 
of  course,  the  same  rule  holds  good  in  a  still  greater  de- 
gree with  reference  to  sixths  and  chords  of  three  or  more 
notes,  when  struck  upon  bells.  The  simultaneous  striking, 
and  hence  confusion  of  vibrations,  can  not,  of  course,  be  al- 
ways avoided,  but,  whenever  it  can  be,  we  shall  find  that  it 
is  avoided  by  Van  den  Gheyn.  It  is  true  that  he  is  not  al- 
ways at  the  pains  of  writing  his  thirds  with  a  quaver  and 
a  crotchet,  to  indicate  the  non-simultaneity  of  the  stroke, 
but  we  are  more  and  more  convinced  that,  whenever  it  was 
possible,  his  bells  were  struck,  often  with  great  rapidity, 
no  doubt,  but  one  after  the  other.  Indeed,  any  one  who 
has  sat  and  played,  as  the  writer  of  this  article  has  done, 
upon  Van  den  Gheyn's  own  carillon  in  St.  Peter's  belfry, 
will  see  how  next  to  impossible  it  would  be  with  the  rough 
and  heavy  machinery  there  provided  to  strike  three  notes 
simultaneously  in  a  passage  of  considerable  length,  such  as 
the  brilliant  passage,  for  instance,  in  sixths,  with  a  pedal 
bass,  which  occurs  at  the  close  of  the  first  Morceau  Fugue. 
Again,  the  use  of  one  long  pedal  note  running  through 
three  or  four  bars  in  harmony  with  a  running  treble  may 
have  been  suggested  originally  by  bells.  It  is  a  well-known 
favorite  effect  of  S.Bach,  in  his  great  pedal  fugues,  and  has 
been  transferred  to  orchestral  and  chamber  music  by  Men- 
delssohn— conspicuously  in  one  of  his  violoncello  sonatas; 


VAN  DEN  GHEYN  REDIVIVUS.  399 

but  it  is  the  peculiar  property  of  the  carillonneur,  and  has 
been  used  over  and  over  again  by  Van  den  Gheyn  with 
thrilling  interest. 

In  the  second  Morceau  Fugue  we  see  how  magnificently 
deep  bells  may  be  made  to  take  the  place  of  pedal  pipes. 
In  this  massive  and  solemn  movement,  a  subject  of  remark- 
able breadth  and  power,  a  truly  colossal  subject,  suitable 
to  its  colossal  instrument,  is  given  out  and  carried  through 
with  bass  pedal  bells,  and  a  running  accompaniment  in  the 
treble.  The  use  of  smaller  shrill  bells,  to  pick  out  what  we 
may  call  little  definite  sound-specks,  is  a  pleasant  relief  to 
the  ear  toward  the  close,  and  prevents  our  experiencing 
the  slightest  effect  of  monotonous  din  throughout  this  won- 
derfully sustained  and  majestic  piece.  The  way  in  which 
the  final  cadenza  is  led  up  to  is  masterly.  That  cadenza 
is,  in  fact,  a  bravura  passage  of  great  rapidit)T,  the  treble 
part  of  which  it  might  tax  a  respectable  violinist  to  get 
through  creditably,  and  how  it  was  ever  played  upon  a 
Belgian  clavecin  passes  our  comprehension. 

The  whole  of  this  second  Morceau  is  so  fresh  and  so  pro- 
phetic in  its  anticipation  of  modern  musical  effects  that 
it  might  have  been  written  by  Mendelssohn  ;  indeed,  in 
many  places  it  forcibly  reminds  us  of  passages  in  his  organ 
sonatas. 

But  we  must  not  be  tempted  any  longer  to  discourse 
181.          upon  what  baffles  all  description  :  let  us  turn 

Van  den  Gheyn       l 

for  a  moment  from  the  music  to  the  man,  and 


see  him  as  he  lived  and  moved  a  hundred  years  ago  before 
the  eyes  of  the  worthy  Louvainiers.  Old  men  at  Louvain 
remember  well  the  descriptions  of  him  still  current  in  the 
days  of  their  youth.  It  is  Sunday  afternoon  ;  the  great 
square  of  Louvain  is  full  of  gay  loungers.  The  citizens, 
who  have  hardly  had  time  to  speak  to  each  other  during 


400  CARILLONS. 

the  week,  now  meet  and  discuss  the  latest  news  from 
France,  the  market  prices,  the  state  of  trade.  There  are 
plenty  of  young  students  there  from  the  university,  and  as 
they  promenade  up  and  down  the  Grande  Place,  we  may 
well  believe  that  they  are  not  wholly  insensible  to  the 
charms  of  the  wealthy  burghers'  daughters,  who  then  (as 
now  throughout  Belgium)  considered  Sunday  as  their  es- 
pecial/&e  day.  We  can  not  do  better  than  enter  the  Place 
and  mingle  in  the  crowd.  Presently  there  is  a  sudden 
movement  in  the  little  knot  of  stragglers  just  where  the 
Rue  de  Bruxelles  leads  into  the  Grande  Place.  People 
turn  round  to  look,  and  the  crowd  makes  way  as  an  elder- 
ly-looking man,  wearing  a  three-cornered  hat,  and  carrying 
a  heavy  stick  with  a  large  wooden  knob  at  the  top,  comes 
smiling  toward  us.  On  all  sides  he  is  greeted  with  friend- 
ly and  respectful  recognition,  and  presently  he  stops  to  chat 
with  one  of  the  town  council,  and,  taking  a  pinch  of  snuff, 
inquires  if  any  important  persons  have  newly  arrived  in 
town. 

The  appearance  of  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn,  for  that  is 
our  elderly  gentleman,  is  altogether  distinguished.  He 
wears  a  warm  and  glossy  black  coat  of  the  period,  his  vo- 
luminous white  cravat  is  fastidiously  clean,  his  waistcoat 
and  knee-breeches  are  of  the  finest  black  silk,  and  his  shoes 
are  set  off  with  handsome  gold  buckles.  His  deportment 
is  that  of  a  man  of  the  world  accustomed  to  good  society ; 
and  there  is  a  certain  good-natured,  but  self-reliant  aplomb 
about  him,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  he  is  quite  aware 
of  his  own  importance,  and  expects  as  a  matter  of  course 
the  consideration  which  he  receives. 

After  chatting  for  twenty  minutes  or  so,  during  which 
time  his  quick  eye  has  discovered  most  of  the  strangers  in 
the  crowd  who  may  have  come  to  Louvain  to  hear  him 
play,  he  turns  into  the  church  of  St.  Peter,  and,  having 


VAN  DEN  GHEYN  REDIVIVUS.  401 

doffed  his  holiday  costume  and  dressed  himself  in  light  flan- 
nels, ascends  the  winding  staircase,  and  is  soon  seated  at 
his  clavecin.  His  performances,  almost  always  improvisa- 
tions on  those  Sunday  afternoons,  are  said  to  have  been 
quite  unique.  Fantasias,  airs  fugues  in  four  parts,  were 
tossed  about  on  the  bells,  and  streamed  out  in  truly  wild 
and  magic  music  over  the  town.  The  sound  was  audible 
far  out  in  the  fields  around  Louvain,  and  people  at  Everley 
might  stand  still  to  listen  as  the  music  rose  and  fell  be- 
tween the  pauses  of  the  wind. 

The  performance  usually  lasted  about  half  an  hour,  aft- 
er which  time  Van  den  Gheyn  would  resume  his  best  suit, 
three-cornered  hat,  and  massive  walking-stick,  and  come 
down  to  mingle  freely  in  the  throng,  and  receive  the  hearty 
congratulations  and  compliments  of  his  friends  and  ad- 
mirers. 

Matthias  van  den  Gheyn  married  young,  and  had  a  nu- 
merous family.  His  wife  was  a  sensible  woman,  and  did 
a  thriving  business  in  the  cloth  trade.  Madame  Van  den 
Gheyn  had  many  customers,  and  her  husband  had  many 
pupils,  and  thus  this  worthy  couple  supported  themselves 
and  their  children  in  comfort  and  prosperity,  deserving 
and  receiving  the  respect  and  friendship  of  the  good  Lou- 
vaiiiiers. 

Matthias  van  den  Gheyn  was  born  in  1721 ;  at  the  age 
of  twenty-four  (the  same  year  that  he  was  appointed  car- 
illonneur  of  Louvain)  he  married  Marie  Catherine  Lintz,  a 
Louvain  girl  aged  twenty-one,  by  whom  he  had  seventeen 
children.  He  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-four  in  1785. 

The  present  famous  Belgian  bell-founders,  Andre  Louis 
van  Aerschodt  and  Severin  van  Aerschodt,  are  the  sons  of 
Anne  Maximiliane,  the  granddaughter  of  the  great  caril- 
lonneur,  Matthias  van  den  Gheyn.  These  gentlemen  cast 
all  the  best  bells  that  are  made  in  Belgium. 
26 


402  CARILLONS. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  let  us  speak  a  good  word  for 
England. 

The  English  bell-founders,  it  is  true,  do  not  at  present 
182-        seem  to  have  the  right  feeling  about  bells,  or 

English  Bell  „    , 

Works.  any  great  sense  of  the  importance  of  tune ;  but 
the  English  bell  mechanism  is  beyond  comparison  the  first 
in  the  world.  We  should  order  our  bells  in  Belgium,  and 
get  them  fitted  with  clavecin  and  carillon  machinery  in 
England. 

The  new  carillon  machinery  invented  by  Gillet  and  Bland, 
of  Croydon,  and  applied  to  a  set  of  Belgian  bells  at  Boston, 
Lincolnshire,  occupies  about  a  third  of  the  room  used  by 
the  Belgian  works,  avoiding  the  immense  strain  upon  the 
barrel,  and  the  immense  resistance  offered  by  the  clavecin 
keys  to  the  performer  under  the  old  system.  In  the  old 
system  the  little  spikes  on  the  revolving  barrel  had  to  lift 
tongues  communicating  by  wires  directly  with  the  heavy 
hammers,  which  had  thus  to  be  raised  and  let  fall  on  the 
outside  of  the  bell.  In  the  new  system  the  spikes  have 
nothing  to  do  with  lifting  the  hammers.  The  hammers 
are  always  kept  lifted  or  set  by  a  system  of  machinery  de- 
vised specially  for  this  heavy  work.  All  the  little  spikes 
have  to  do  is  to  lift  tongues  communicating  with  wires 
which  have  no  longer  the  heavy  task  of  raising  the  ham- 
mers, but  merely  of  letting  them  slide  off  on  to  the  bells. 

The  force  required  for  this  is  comparatively  slight ;  and 
if  we  substitute  for  the  barrel  with  spikes  a  key-board 
played  by  human  fingers,  thus  making  the  fingers  through 
pressure  on  the  keys  perform  the  task  of  the  barrel-spike 
in  letting  off  the  hammer,  any  lady  acquainted  with  the 
nature  of  a  piano-forte  or  organ  key-board  will  be  found 
equal  to  the  task  of  playing  on  the  carillon.  This  was 
a  result  probably  never  contemplated  by  the  old  carillon- 


ENGLISH  BELL  WORKS.  403 

neurs,  who  used  to  strip  and  go  in  for  a  sort  of  pugilistic 
encounter  with  a  vast  row  of  obdurate  pegs  in  front  of 
them.  The  pegs  have  vanished,  and  in  their  place  we  have 
a  small  and  tempting  row  of  keys,  which  occupies  about 
the  same  space,  and  is  almost  as  easy  to  play  upon  as  a 
small  organ  key-board. 

The  Croydon  carillon  machine  which  we  have  lately  ex- 
amined plays  hymn-tunes  on  eight  bells.  The  largest  of 
these  bells  weighs  31  cwt.,  and  the  others  are  in  proportion. 
Yet  the  machine  (which  stands  under  a  glass  case)  is  only 
3  feet  long,  2  feet  wide,  and  3  feet  9  inches  in  height.  The 
musical  barrel,  made  of  hazelwood  (there  is  no  key-board), 
is  10  inches  in  diameter  and  14  inches  long;  the  spikes  on 
the  barrel  for  letting  off  the  heavy  hammers  are  only  ^  of 
an  inch  square.  When  we  compare  the  delicacy  of  this 
machinery,  which  looks  like  the  magnified  works  of  a  mu- 
sical box,  with  the  prodigious  effects  it  is  calculated  to 
produce,  one  can  not  help  feeling  convinced  that  the  time 
is  at  hand  when  every  tuneful  peal  in  the  kingdom  will  be 
fitted  with  this  beautiful  apparatus. 

Meanwhile  we  can  not  help  repeating  in  more  detail  a 
suggestion  made  at  the  commencement  of  this  article,  and 
which  occurs  to  us  whenever  we  enter  a  dilapidated  belfry 
full  of  creaking  wheels  and  rotten  timbers.  Before  we 
think  of  key-boards  and  barrels,  let  us  supply  some  simple 
machinery  for  the  common  ringing  of  the  bells.  Great 
Peter  at  York  has  never  yet  been  rung,  and  the  friction 
caused  by  any  attempt  to  ring  him  is  very  great.  This 
is,  no  doubt,  due  to  a  defect  in  the  hanging.  We  hear 
about  towers  being  rung  down  by  the  vibrations  of  the 
bells,  but  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that  they  are  rocked 
down  by  the  friction  of  coarse  and  unscientific  machinery. 
If  all  the  bellowing  of  the  Prussian  guns  failed  to  make 
any  material  impression  upon  the  fragile  stone  filigree  work 


404  CARILLONS. 

of  the  Strasbourg  tower,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  sound  of 
bells  has  much  to  do  with  the  ruin  of  brick-work  and  ma- 
sonry. 

In  connection  with  the  swinging  of  a  heavy  bell,  there 
always  must  be  considerable  strain  upon  the  tower.  But 
the  friction  might  be  indefinitely  diminished  if  the  bell  ma- 
chinery worked  smoothly,  and  the  labor,  often  at  present 
Herculean,  of  the  poor  bell-ringer  might  be  reduced  to  al- 
most zero  were  that  machinery  a  little  more  scientific. 
When  it  is  once  understood  that  an  improved  system  of 
ringing  the  bells  would  save  deans  and  chapters  all  over 
the  country  enormous  sums  of  money  by  suspending  the 
wear  and  tear  which  now  goes  on  in  so  many  of  our  cathe- 
dral towers,  we  can  not  help  thinking  that  little  opposition 
will  be  raised  by  those  who  have  to  pay  for  the  damages. 
Bell-ringers  are  doubtless  a  most  obstinate  set  of  men ;  but 
if  they  were  paid  the  same  for  working  machinery  which 
produced  twice  as  much  effect  with  less  than  half  the  labor, 
they  too  would  soon  give  in  to  a  better  system.  That  un- 
grateful and  barbarous  rope  and  wheel,  whose  action  upon 
the  bell  is  now  so  uncertain,  would  probably  disappear, 
and  give  place  to  something  like  a  handle,  a  piston,  or 
even  a  key-board  and  a  set  of  wheels  and  pulleys.  There 
is  no  reason  whatever  why,  with  a  better  ringing  mechan- 
ism, one  man  might  not  ring  half  a  dozen  bells,  instead  of, 
as  at  present,  half  a  dozen  men  being  often  set  to  ring  a 
single  big  bell.  I  make  these  suggestions  with  the  more 
confidence  because  they  have  been  favorably  entertained 
by  the  heads  of  one  of  the  most  eminent  firms  of  horology 
in  England.  I  am  glad  to  say  that,  in  accordance  with  my 
suggestions,  these  gentlemen  have  promised  to  give  their 
attention  to  the  development  of  a  better  mechanism  for 
the  ringing  of  bells.  They  write  as  follows :  "  Although 
bells  have  never  been  rung  by  machinery,  we  believe  it 


REFORM  NEEDED.  405 

would  be  possible  to  accomplish  this,  although  it  might  be 
expensive." 

A  little  ordinary  thought  and  common  sense,  not  to  speak 
183.     of  a  little  mechanical  science,  would  work  wonders 

Reform 

needed,  in  our  belfries.  There  is  hardly  a  cathedral  tower 
in  England  where  the  hanging  of  one  or  more  bells,  or  the 
oscillation  of  the  tower,  is  not  justly  complained  of.  As  a 
rule,  the  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  In  both  York  and  Dur- 
ham, for  instance,  the  bells  are  hung  too  high  up.  In  York 
there  are  twelve  bells  besides  Great  Peter,  which  hangs  in 
a  separate  tower.  They  are  all  crowded  together  on  one 
floor,  instead  of  being  distributed  properly  in  an  upper  and 
a  lower  floor. 

In  Durham  the  two  lower  side  towers,  and  not  the  high 
centre  one,  ought  to  have  been  fitted  for  the  bells.  When 
a  bell  is  hard  to  ring,  it  is  almost  always  not  on  account 
of  its  weight,  but  on  account  of  its  "  hanging."  The  wood- 
work and  hasps  at  the  top  of  the  bell  should  be  kept  as 
high  as  possible.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  when  a  bell 
works  heavily,  the  wood-work  and  iron  hasps  will  be  found 
crowded  down  low,  and  reaching  over  the  curve  of  the  top 
of  the  bell.  Large  bells  should  have,  if  possible  a  separate 
tower.  Large  bells,  for  the  sake  of  the  tower,  should  be 
hung  as  low  as  possible ;  the  little  bells  can  be  hung  even 
up  in  the  steeple ;  but  when  there  are  a  number  of  bells, 
they  ought  always  to  be  hung,  according  to  their  weights, 
in  two  or  more  layers. 

All  this  has  been  known  and  practiced  in  Belgium  for 
two  hundred  years  and  more ;  why  do  not  our  bell-hangers 
visit  the  Antwerp  or  Mechlin  towers?  one  glance  would 
often  be  sufficient.  When  we  extol  English  bell  works  we 
do  not  allude  to  the  way  in  which  English  bells  are  hung, 
but  rather  to  English  carillon,  and  clavecin,  and  clock 


406  CARILLONS. 

works.  Let  us  hope  that  the  time  is  coming  when  our 
bell -hangers  will  get  some  good  mathematician  to  teli 
them  a  few  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  mechanics.  Until  then, 
deans  and  chapters  may  sigh  and  seek  in  vain  to  make 
their  bells  work  and  keep  their  towers  from  rocking  to 
pieces. 


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